Bellacine Black: Goblet of Fire
by toujourspurPAL
Summary: Bellacine returns to Hogwarts 2 years after leaving Durmstrang only to find 12 old classmates arriving, Harry stuck in the Tournament, and a new teacher who may have killed her father. Sequel to all on Bella; canon but for the obvious.
1. Chapter 1 Travelling by Fire

**A/N: This is the sequel to a story I've already written about Bellacine, so if you're picking up here it's like reading GoF without reading PoA. Except you already know the basic plot of PoA anyway, just not the new-and-improved version. I'll do my best to bring you up to speed, but I reccomend you read the prequel first. I'm really bad at story titles. Forgive me.**

**Disclaimer: If I was JKR I wouldn't be asking you to review. I'D BE ASKING YOU TO STOP WRITING SLASH!! **

* * *

The owl arrived shortly after midnight, rapping on the closed windowpane with its beak.

The room it hovered outside appeared to be a bedroom, comfortably large but not spacious. It contained bookshelves, a desk, a wardrobe, a bed; the walls were painted a deep Slytherin green that the girl lying asleep on the bed did not care for much—it was a nice enough color on its own, but the connotations of it bothered her. It had only truly bothered her for one year, the thirteenth-going-on-fourteenth of her life, because that was the year she transferred to Hogwarts from Durmstrang Institute and became the second member of an inherently-Slytherin pureblood family to be placed into Gryffindor.

The owl tapped its beak on the glass again, making soft cheeping noises, and she mumbled, "I'm awake, I'm awake, what is it?" while shoving off the sheets and sitting up, slowly. Her disarrayed hair was slightly curly- curly enough to always be annoying- and black, in sharp contrast to her pale skin. Her eyes, once she blinked them open, were dark grey.

"I'm awake, little owl, now shut up before somebody else wakes," Bellacine Black muttered and unlatched the window.

It rocketed in, flying a few laps around the room for no apparent reason. Bellacine glowered at it and leapt up to catch it on its fifth circle of her bedroom. Squawking and struggling, the bird fidgeted in her grasp until she pulled a tightly rolled parchment off its leg. The tiny, fuzzy owl zoomed off the second her grip relaxed and hooted softly at her from its newfound home atop her wardrobe.

"Quiet, please, because if you're from someone I know from Hogwarts no one in my family will be particularly to find you here," Bellacine hissed as she unfolded the paper. Realising it was much too dark to read anything, she cursed and lit a candle.

By the flickering light that tossed high shadows onto the walls she saw it was a letter from a friend of hers, Ron Weasley.

_Dear Bella,_

_Happy birthday! I know it was last Sunday, but whatever. I'll give you your present when I see you next because I think Pig'd collapse trying to carry anything bigger than him. (Pig's the owl Sirius let me have earlier this summer. I wasn't the one who named him.)_

_Anyway, I'm writing because Dad got us all tickets for the World Cup, which is this Monday night, and I wondered if you wanted to come with us. Harry and Hermione will be coming too. I guess the Malfoys will be going, but I reckoned maybe you wanted to come with us, and you can stay at our house for the rest of the holidays since that's what Harry and Hermione are doing. Don't worry about my parents and the whole Black thing- when I told Mum she freaked out a little, but Fred and George and I convinced her you were okay. _

Bellacine's uncle was Sirius Black, an infamous mass-murderer who had escaped from Azkaban the previous summer under very mysterious circumstances—or so the newspapers said. The truth was, he was completely innocent and the murders he supposedly had done were really committed by Peter Pettigrew. She, Ron, Harry, and Hermione had discovered this at the end of last year's term, and perhaps this would have made every Gryffindor treat her altogether differently- at present their opinion of her was somewhere between strong dislike and fear, except for her three good friends- but before they could clear Sirius, Pettigrew had escaped and her uncle was on the run yet again.

She returned to the letter.

_So if you want to come, you can come to our house pretty much any time during this week before Sunday evening, which is when we're getting Harry from the Muggles. Hermione is here already and rooming with my little sister, Ginny. You'll have to share a room with them too, sorry, but our house is really cramped at the moment since my brothers Bill and Charlie are home for this month also. Bill works for Gringotts and Charlie works with dragons in Romania._

_Hope to see you soon. Send Pig back with your answer. Floo powder is probably best; our house is in Ottery St. Catchpole and it's called the Burrow._

_--Ron_

_P.S. I hope the Malfoys are treating you okay._

Bellacine set the letter face down on her desk, a grin breaking out across her face. She lived with her mother's brother's family- that is, the Malfoys- because her parents had died when she was very young, her father shortly before her birth and her mother slightly afterwards. Her father, Regulus Black, had been a Death Eater alongside his brother-in-law Lucius Malfoy until he was killed by Aurors, and then her mother had died, and she went to the family she had left outside of Azkaban. Her adoptive family (she had kept her surname, but they felt like her family more than the idea of her parents did) was certainly civil to her; the way Bellacine often thought of it was, Draco was their son and she wasn't their child, and the only way they treated her any differently differed here; but since she had left all-pureblood Durmstrang and ended up in bring-down-the-Dark-Lord Gryffindor, they had definitely acted chillier.

There was a little over a fortnight left in the summer holidays , and quite honestly, leaving Malfoy Manor and spending the rest of the summer with her friends sounded like the best idea she had heard in a long time. Hardly anything had been said to her, but there had been a different atmosphere in the house since the previous year.

Bellacine got out a quill and scribbled _Sounds great, thanks for inviting me. I'll see you sometime this week, probably earlier. The Malfoys are fine. Thanks again, Bella._ She waved the owl christened 'Pig' down off her wardrobe and tied the message to his leg.

"Thanks, featherball," she whispered, and carried him over to her still-open window. He flapped off, plummeting for a few moments, then rising and flying away. Smiling, she settled back down on her bed, but after an hour of turning and tossing she decided she was much too awake to sleep.

_Wait a second. How am I going to explain leaving here for the Weasleys' house to them? Oh…they'd really take that well._ She could imagine their faces when she sat down at dinner…._"Oh, I'm going to my friend Ron Weasley's for the rest of the summer…yeah, he's a Weasley, who cares?"_

Well, there went her summer.

She rose up and crossed the room to her desk again, taking out a fresh sheet of parchment and a Self-Inking Quill, and began to write: _Ron, I'm sorry but I can't come to yours for the summer, I can't think of how not to tell them and they won't just let me go…._A breeze rushed in the window behind her, blowing the parchment and knocking over a still-open jar of ink on her desk.

Swearing quietly in Russian, Bellacine picked up the candle, bringing it with her as she unlatched her door and stepped into the hall to find something to mop up with. She returned minutes later with a towel from the linen cupboard and set about wiping up the ink and tossing out the soaked parchment. Pulling the chair away from her desk, she set it by the window and collapsed in it, resting her elbows on the windowsill and blankly staring outside.

It was times like this, with nothing to keep her mind occupied, and when the only people who really understood her were miles and miles out of distance that she felt completely alone. Admittedly, she had friends that cared about her, that had written during the summer even though she couldn't initiate a communiqué on her own because she didn't own an owl and couldn't just borrow one without asking, but it looked as if they would be spending the remainder of August together, enjoying themselves, and her other-older- friends, these she hadn't seen since the last Christmas, like Anya Gnedich.

Bellacine sat bolt upright. Anya! Of course! She'd tell the Malfoys she was headed to St. Petersburg for the next two weeks, then do so but only stay for a few days, using their house as a midway base to head to the Burrow.

Brilliant.

* * *

The next evening over supper, Bellacine brought up the subject of going to "Russia" for the remainder of the holidays. "…and Anya wrote, it got here late last night, she was the one who asked in the first place," she finished, crossing her fingers under the table even though lies like these didn't count.

Lucius and Narcissa exchanged a look. "I'm glad you're keeping in touch with your friends, that you're friends with the right sort of people," he said at last, "but…I don't know, exactly…."

"What, don't you know anyone at Hogwarts?" Draco asked innocently.

She glowered at him, a silent reminder of the pact they had made, that her would mention nothing about the friends she had made or anything else she had done at Hogwarts. "No one in particular, no, Draco. Besides"-she turned back to her aunt and uncle-"I'll be back at Hogwarts this autumn, so I'll see them, unlike everyone from Durmstrang."

"Yes," her uncle countered, "but you'll likely be seeing some of the Durmstrang students this year regardless. I received the Ministry owl this afternoon, the Triwizard's been reinstated."

"They reinstated the what?"

"The Triwizard Tournament- a competition between the three major European schools: Beauxbatons from France, Durmstrang from Eastern Europe and Hogwarts, of course. The Tournament is played at one of the three participating schools and from each visiting school there is a delegation sent. From these delegations and the host school's students three champions are selected and contest against each other. Hogwarts is hosting it this year."

"But why hasn't it been played before?" asked Draco, his face shining with a secret joy: _he could be the Hogwarts champion…._

Lucius shrugged. "The reason it's not been held for the past few centuries- well, the various Ministries felt the mortality rate had risen too high, so…." He shrugged again. "They discontinued it. Far too dangerous, they said. Somehow it's been brought back, but in all likelihood it's as dangerous as it always is."

"You're not to enter," said Narcissa.

"But- Mother, I want to-!" he protested.

"No," she said simply. "You aren't to enter, it's still too dangerous, Draco. Bella, I'd rather you didn't either, but-"

"Excuse me," Bellacine interrupted stiffly, "but- look, may I go to Anya's house or not? I need to know soon so I can write to her, let her know I can come."

"What time did her mother say you could come?"

"Erm, three o'clock tomorrow."

They exchanged a look again. "Very well, you may go. Don't bother sending an owl; I doubt it would arrive in time. Use Floo Powder instead- you know where it's kept." His eyes shifted between the two fourteen-year-olds. "Both of you, you're excused. Go."

Before Draco pushed his chair out she was in the hallway, and she was almost upstairs when he caught up to her.

"See? Overprotective at its finest," her cousin muttered dourly. "Finally we get something exciting at school- and, might I add, something Potter isn't already the world champion in- and they ruin it for me. You're not entering either." It was said as a statement, not a question, and she cocked an eyebrow.

"Really? And what authority do you have over me?"

He smiled dangerously. "Oh, not much- but I know one thing for sure."

"What's that?"

"You're not planning on spending the rest of your summer at your friend's place, are you? No, of course not- you want to see your _other _friends, Potter and Weasley and the mudblood, am I right? Hey, maybe I should tell one of them; isn't that such the responsible thing to do- good to let them know where you are, in case anything happens-"

She stepped towards him suddenly. "No. It isn't. Because that's not happening, Draco, you aren't telling anyone anything until I give you the go-ahead. That was our agreement, wasn't it? You are silent until I say you can talk; in exchange, I don't bother you at school and also I owe you most of our summer essays." That was a bargain that had taken an irksome amount of time, as a few teachers had assigned a different topic to every class for their summer essays, but it was well worth the price. "Unless…you still want those…or can I just get rid of them?"

"They're mine. Give them to me before you leave, and if you try to weasel out, I'm telling."

She shrugged jauntily, smiling. "Of course I will." She meant it, but it was hard to keep a sincere expression on her face- not while attempting to restrain laughter at Draco's "I'm telling" and how like a little child it made him seem.

* * *

Bellacine ran a hand along the mantel of the fireplace in the upstairs drawing room. "Where's that stupid little…oh, here it is," she whispered as her fingers brushed against a small silver pot, ornately carved, that contained the Floo Powder.

She removed the lid and took a little pinch in her hand, blowing the dark powder into the recently stoked fire. The flames turned a bright, crackling green; kneeling on the stone floor, blinking rapidly against the light- it was later than she would have wished, almost nine, which was near midnight in St. Petersburg, and the room had been dark till she raked the coals into flames- she thrust her head into the fire, pronouncing "Forty-two Ikaratina Prospekt!" with some difficulty, coughing as she was on ashes. Fireplaces whooshed past her, making her slightly dizzy; that combined with the highly uncomfortable feeling of sticking one's head into the fireplace led her to decide this was going to be a rather brief chat.

The whirling colors stopped and Bellacine found herself staring out of the Gnedich's parlor fireplace. The room was mostly dim, except for—Something white with no precise shape hurtled toward her head. Not sure of what would happen should she recoil, she stayed perfectly still and was promptly hit in the head by a crumpled-up parchment.

After this warm welcome fell and burnt she looked up into a boy's face. Crouching on the mantle rug, staring at her openmouthed, was Vasily, Anya's older brother.

"Bella- sorry- did that hit you- wait-what are you doing here?" he hurriedly stammered. "I was doing all the work I left off- sorry about the parchment, I keep messing this up- what's going on-?"

She quickly explained the situation. "….so is it okay if I come tomorrow and use your house as a sort of landing base to get to the Weasley's?"

"Yes, of course. What time are you coming?"

"Three o'clock tomorrow afternoon my time, so 'round six here. Is that all right?"

"Of course it is," said Vasily. "Just stay for dinner then, if that's when you're coming. With the time difference you can stay as long as you need."

"I don't mean to- to impose," she said nervously, glancing left and right at the green flames around her. Talking to her friend's older brother always made her slightly awkward; he was two years older than the two girls and smart for his age, and she eternally worried she would say something stupid.

"No, no, it's fine." He waved it off, dropping to his knees. "Mother won't mind you coming so sudden, if that matters. I can tell Anya tomorrow. I think they're both asleep or I'd get her, but I had to stay up to finish summer homework. Evil, aren't they, giving homework over the holidays?"

"Very. It is their forte, after all." She glanced over his shoulder to the stack of books and parchment on a table. "What d'you have to do?"

"Read a book for Muggle Studies and an essay for Dark Arts on the Cruciatus Curse; Karkaroff sounds like he's taking half our mark for the first half-term from it, so putting it off probably wouldn't be the most brilliant thing to do."

She nodded. "True. What's the book?"

"_Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_," said Vasily. "Ever heard of it? I haven't, or not till yesterday."

"No, never. Look, I'd better be going, I didn't get that much Floo Powder to begin with and I think I've almost used up what I did take. Thanks, Vasily; I'll see you all tomorrow."

"Of course." He stood as Bellacine's head began to vanish, slowly withdrawing, from the fire. "_Do zavrat_." _See you tomorrow. _

Chuckling, Bellacine pulled her head out of the fireplace in Malfoy Manor. She banked the fire and brushed some soot off the rug. Snuffing the candles, she slipped out of the now-dark room and up the corridor; turned to head up the staircase to bed. She paused, hearing voices on the landing; shadows on the dark violet walls revealed them to be her aunt and her uncle.

"There's something I meant to tell you earlier," whispered Lucius. "It burnt again last night. No- it didn't burn, truly, not like the old days, but for the first time in thirteen years I _felt _it last night. I truly felt it…."

"Let me see it," Narcissa demanded, and she reached for his arm, lifting his hand in hers.

"No!"

There was a little gust of wind and all the torches quivered; when they steadied and she could see precise shadows again, Lucius clutched his wrist in his right hand, seemingly to hold it away from his wife.

"Why not- this affects me just as much as it affects you, if something were to happen- I've seen it before, Lucius-"

Bellacine shifted her weight on the first step and a loud creak issued out. The air and her relatives' silhouettes were suddenly, eerily still. "Who's there?" called Lucius.

There remained no choice now but to reveal herself, to stave off trouble. "It's me, Uncle," she announced, climbing up to the second landing. "Bella."

A frown flashed across his face, but he didn't appear angry, more…worried. Not quite frightened…."What are you still doing up? It's late."

"It is _not _late," she protested. "It's hardly ten o'clock at night, since when was that late? And seeing as you asked, I was in the fire, talking to Anya like you told me to."

"When I say it's late, it's late! Go to bed, _now_."

Bellacine shrugged and continued past them, up the stairs to her bedroom. _Somebody's in a temper_, she fumed. _What's up with that? 'When I say it's late, it's late!' What's going on there that they didn't want me to hear? _For it had been quite clear that she'd overheard something they didn't want for her to hear. And what was her uncle talking about, something burning that had not burned in thirteen years?

* * *

"Are you packed?" Narcissa repeated the next afternoon as Bellacine prepared to leave, starting a fire. The day had been unusually warm, with no fires lit throughout the manor. "Remember to tell Mrs. Gnedich we say hello, and thank her. I don't know when we're going to see you next-"

"Why not?"

"Well," she said with a smile, "with the Tournament going on this year I expect there will be some event over Christmas, and you don't want to miss that…."

"Yes, I know," she replied, tossing in the Floo Powder. "Good-bye, then." Narcissa said good-bye briefly and then Bellacine walked into the green fire, announcing "Forty-two Ikaratina Prospekt!" as she went.

It felt uncomfortable as ever, like walking into a furnace (albeit pain-free), visions of other people's homes flashing past, a blur of flames and empty, ash-filled grates. Eventually the whirling slowed, then stopped, and she ducked below the mantelpiece, stepping into the parlor of Anya's home.

Anya leapt up from the sofa where she had been waiting, hugging her quickly, then stepped back slowly, shaking her head, though she could hardly disguise a laughing smile. "Bella Regulovna, Vasily tells me our house has become part of your little con artist scheme," she said.

As ever, they spoke in Russian: the native language of Anya and Vasily and a language quickly learnt by Bellacine during her stint at Durmstrang. German was the main language of the school in which lessons were taught, but it was in Russia, closest to the city of Arkhangel'sk, and about fifty percent of the students were Russian on at least one side. Therefore, while German remained, so to speak the language of business (it had been reasoned long ago that German would be easier to learn than Russian; easier to stick with one alphabet) and Russian became the language of day-to-day life, of the students and occasionally of the more forgetful teachers.

"And? "

"And I would like to say that I am not an accomplice to any of this and will be pleading innocent on any and all charges."

"_Well_ then," she muttered, feigning offense; Anya was rarely serious. "How's life? Sorry to…randomly pop up here." She gestured around at the Gnedichs' house; though old and a bit faded, it was still beautiful and decorated formally like any pureblood domicile.

"It's fine, you do it so often regardless," said Anya, brushing at a stray ash with the side of her foot. "Come on, away from the fireplace. My mum has to stay late at the Ministry tonight, they have a lot of work with people trying to arrange Portkeys for the World Cup soon."

Bellacine knew Anya's mother worked for the international department of the Russian Ministry; their father had been killed back during the First War for refusing to join the Death Eaters. Neither Anya nor Vasily held it against her that a great deal of her family _had _joined. (None of them knew about Sirius; she and her Hogwarts friends reached a consensus over the summer that they would never tell anyone about Sirius's innocence, or protest it to anyone.)

Her friend set off down the hallway, and Bellacine trailed behind her. "And with the Triwizard Tournament back," she added nonchalantly. "That must be a good deal of what she has to do."

She whirled around. "The _what _is back? The negotiations went through?"

"Maybe," laughed Bellacine. "I wouldn't know…oh, all right, I do. My uncle told me. Hogwarts is hosting this year, and Durmstrang and Beauxbatons both will come. Three schools, hence _Tri_wizard."

"There were rumors, last year, in the spring," she said softly, "but we thought…too dangerous. Karkaroff won't risk it again."

"Risk what, precisely?" But she knew the exact reason: after all, the reason she had left Durmstrang and come to Hogwarts last year was singlefold.

Ilya Fyodorovitch Nevsky had fallen from his broom and died.

It had been the last night of school. They were playing Quidditch, only for fun, not a real game with any weight; there weren't even enough players for seven-person teams. Ilya had fallen, and Fenrir Greyback bit him. Except the werewolf got a bit carried away: Ilya died. What more was there to say?

Oh, yes. It had been her idea to have a game of Quidditch, even though the headmaster had expressly forbidden them to go outside at all that night. (Later, she discovered he knew Greyback was in the area; she had put to vain his effort to protect his students.) So whose fault had it been?

"Bella?"

Whose fault had it been? Hers or Greyback's? Karkaroff's? Who do you blame for the death of a child? Spin the wheel, pick one, skip a few, a hundred, they're all the same in the end—

"Bella?"

This voice was different, weighing more, lower: not Anya. After the voice called her name again she realized she was still standing, completely still, in the unlit hallway, staring at the dark wooden floor. Slowly, she lifted her head.

Vasily smiled slightly at her. "It's okay. You're okay. Nothing will ever happen again."

"Can you swear? How can you swear?" she asked quietly. "How do you know one of us won't die today, or tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow? Did you hear- you heard me, didn't you? The Triwizard is back. Do you have any idea how dangerous that could be?"

Brother and sister glanced at her, then each other.

"It's back," Anya explained to Vasily. "Hogwarts hosting it, Durmstrang and the French school sending delegations. I doubt Harfang ever competed- as Bella says, hence _Tri_wizard."

"You're right; it didn't, not while it existed. Too small."

Harfang had been, until 1903, a school in Iceland servicing Scandinavia, Iceland, and the nearby countries when a power struggle between two candidates for the recently vacated headmaster's seat had shut down the school completely, and so far, permanently. This was part of the reason Durmstrang was so big: an influx of about a thousand additional students back in the1900s from the Harfang reason had almost doubled the size of the school, and those that had come, stayed.

"So I'll try to come to your school, then," he continued. "You know when Durmstrang comes?"

"No idea."

Anya said, "Me too, I want to see what Hogwarts is like."

"Well, you won't," said Vasily. "Not that many people will go, and those that do, will be in the upper years. I don't know how many people we'll take, but probably only as many as we can fit on one of the ships."

"Which could be anywhere from twelve people to the whole school," she muttered. "What they'll probably do is, they'll hold some sort of contest to select the people that will go, because they want the people who have a chance of winning if they get in."

"Exactly," he said, "so I'm going."

* * *

The Russian Underground is found in St. Petersburg- if you can find it. Like Diagon Alley, shielded from Muggles unless they are introduced to it, Unplottable, and entirely separate from the rest of the city, a self-sufficient community. Unlike Diagon Alley, the Underground (which, incidentally, is aboveground and has no relation whatsoever to any form of transportation) also contains the Russian Ministry of Magic and court system, Sovyetaskoyii, as well as residential areas; this was where the Gnedichs lived.

They found a place in the Underground for dinner, a Three Broomsticks-esque place tucked between shops on Doginasara Prospekt, the Red Dragon, because neither Anya nor Vasily could cook without covering all of St. Petersburg in a cloud of nuclear fallout. She had learned this through past experience, and through many hours in Potions spent dodging all sorts of interesting concoctions that often exploded.

Professor Mueller did not like Anya Gnedich much.

At the Red Dragon they sat in a booth near the window; when they finished, Vasily went to the bar and paid for their meal. Leaving the pub, they walked past the Ministry and as they did, Mrs. Gnedich exited the double doors in front.

"Vasily! Anya! What are you-" she began, and paused upon seeing Bellacine. "Hello, Bella Regulovna, my children told me you were dropping in. How is your family?"

A tiny woman much shorter than her son and a few inches shorter than her daughter, Mrs. Gnedich had wispy grey-brown hair and pale skin. She looked much older than she truly was, much older than many women her age; Bellacine reasoned this was in part due to the fact that her husband had been killed and her brother sent to Azkaban for life.

Mrs. Gnedich had been born Marya Dolohov, her older brother Antonin married as well and with one son; in a sense, the Gnedich and Dolohov cousins both lived in a fatherless family. But Anton was seventeen already; he remembered his father, if briefly.

"Well, thank you. And yourself?"

She didn't know what it was that made him so arrogant, but the fact remained, Anton was. If he was a kinder person he could be compared to Percy Weasley with his strict semi-obsession with rules, and they were both a little too ambitious, but Percy was nothing like the slightly younger boy. The fact that Anya and Vasily and Anton were cousins did nothing for their relationship; they disliked him just as much as the rest of the school.

Somehow, now being trailed by an adult (no less, a parent) they had nothing of any real significance to say and the talk soon changed to the weather, ambling slowly. Finally the Gnedichs and Bellacine reached the house, but by that time, she realized, she had to leave or she'd likely be showing up at the Burrow in the middle of their supper.

Anya and Bellacine went into the parlor; her things had been left near the hearth and the Floo Powder was, in an interesting show of similitude, on the mantel. Oh astonishment of astonishments. She stood her trunk on end, and Anya hugged her good-bye.

"What, don't I get a hug?" asked Vasily, and then he actually flinched, seeming surprised at himself and acutely aware that both girls were staring openly at him. He laughed. "I was joking. 'Bye, Bella." Anya tossed Floo Powder into the fire.

Bellacine wasn't sure if he was sincere or not. Agnosticism at its finest. "Good-bye."

She stepped into the oddly cool green flames, dragging her upended trunk by one handle, and called, "The Burrow!"

Her last glimpse of forty-two Ikaratina Prospekt was of Anya waving into the fireplace, and then whirling infernal colors took all her vision away.

**

* * *

**

A/N: Right, I hope I've explained everything well enough for the new readers. As previously said, it'll be better if you go read the prequel but I will try to make allotment for those who don't. If there's anything you don't understand (or that the old readers think I should explain for the new) let me know, please, and I shall make an effort to clarify.

On _Dr. J& Mr. H._: I had to include it. Moody/BCJ references. Such great fun.


	2. Chapter 2 The Burrow

**A/N: Right, so it wasn't exactly two weeks. But it's up. And I have a new study hall moderator who has let me go to the library every single day for a week, so things are looking up. **

**I know, I know, I'm stealing chapter title(s) from CoS. This is why those glorious things known as discalimers exist. (Must I?)**

**RoumaniaRomania. Both are acceptable, technically. It's not like the Netherlands/Holland difference.**

* * *

Her first impression of Ron Weasley's house was of semi-organized chaos and the color red, but that turned out to be the kitchen fire. Curiously enough, her second impression was also that of semi-organized chaos and the color red. It was, apparently, the kitchen, jam-packed with red-haired people.

Where there really this many redheads in the world? Wasn't it supposed to be a dying breed? And didn't they realize how incredibly disconcerting it was to be stared at wordlessly?

"Hi," she, Ron, and Hermione, who had gone previously unnoticed between Ron and his sister, said at the same moment.

"Merlin save us, it's _her_," said the twins synonymously.

"Hello," said everyone else at the table, somewhat uncertainly.

"Hi," she repeated, nervously scanning the table. Ron and Hermione sat beside each other, Fred and George opposite them, Percy in all his rigid glory beside them . There were five others she didn't recognize or know by name as well.

"Hello, Bellacine, dear," said a rather plump woman at the foot of the table who could only be Mrs. Weasley. "Ginny, will you show Bellacine where she'll be staying so she can take her things up?"

A red-haired girl rose up from next to Hermione and led Bellacine out of the crowded kitchen. "I'm Ginny, I'm in third year this year," she announced by means of introduction. "Mum's going to keep giving you the Harry look as long as you're here, you know," she added.

They went down a narrow hallway, through a crowded living room where all the furniture was shabby-looking, though bright, and were on the third step of a rickety old wooden staircase when Bellacine asked, "The what now?"

"The sort of look that Mum always gives Harry when he comes here. Those Muggles- his aunt and uncle- that he lives with since his parents died are really horrid to him. And Ron says you live with your aunt and uncle, and they're the _Malfoys_." Interpretation: _Your parents are dead, you live with people seen by the rest of the universe as the worst thing since Grindelwald. _

She would have to see how bad these Muggles were, and also do something about the apparently widely held opinion of her home life before any more analogies cropped up, before she was turned into some sort of tragic little hero.

"But they're just the Malfoys," Bellacine protested as they climbed upstairs, "they're not bad…."

"Mr. Malfoy put a book in my school things two years ago that made You-Know-Who possess me. And Dad says they were right in with You-Know-Who back then," she concluded, as though that settled the matter.

Bellacine stopped a step below Ginny and leaned against the wall. It creaked. She straightened hastily. "Percy is an incredibly irksome pompous prat, correct?"

Ginny nodded.

"But no matter how incredibly irksome or just plain stupid he can be, he's still your brother and your family and you still love him, correct?"

More nodding from the direction of her guide.

"Think about it?"

They reached the first-storey landing, first door on the left; Ginny opened it up and stepped into her room. Bellacine followed. It was a nice little room, seemingly smaller than it actually was due to the two additional cots alongside Ginny's bed and desk beneath the window, which overlooked what was presumably the Weasley's back yard. There were a few posters on the wall, mostly of Quidditch teams and bands.

"It's not much," said Ginny quietly, apologetically. "Sorry it's so cramped….."

Bellacine had never asked, but she was under the distinct impression that the Weasley family was very poor. She knew that Ron's former pet rat Scabbers, a.k.a. Peter Pettigrew, a.k.a. Wormtail, was a hand-me-down from Percy; his old wand, if she remembered correctly, had once belonged to Charlie. The general appearance of their house- tumbledown, careworn- heightened her opinion gleamed from experiences last year that affluent was just as good as an antonym as you could get.

"It's nice," she said. "I'd rather have a room I liked even if it was small. My room at home's a nice shade of Slytherin green."

The red-haired girl finally cracked a smile; her earlier, more serious expression wiped from her face entirely. Bellacine must have passed some sort of test. "Shall we go downstairs, then? We were almost done with dinner, and Mum made cake for afterwards."

They went downstairs together. When she entered the kitchen, Mrs. Weasley stood waving her wand, and another chair was jostled into the limited amount of space around the table, between Fred and another Weasley she didn't know.

"I'm Charlie." He shook her hand as she sat down- so this was Ron's second-oldest brother, the one who worked with dragons in Roumania. He was shortish, like the twins; his hand was calloused and there was a fading burn mark running down his arm. "That's Bill, and you know Percy and everybody else."

Percy she knew, of course; he sat beside George and nodded politely in a highly formal, Percy-esque sort of fashion. The only things spoiling the general effect was the large helping of Mrs. Weasley's chocolate cake on the table before him. And then there was Bill. Only he looked nothing like she had thought he would.

She'd known he worked for Gringotts, and that he'd been a prefect or something back in the day at Hogwarts, and with this in mind, she had expected a precursor to Percy, something his brother was attempting to live up to in thought, word, and deed. He certainly wasn't, or else Percy had a wild streak she had never seen before.

Bill's hair was long—not _you're-not-going-to-military-school-long-but-otherwise-you're-fine _long, it was remarkably lengthy, at the very least to his shoulders. And he wore an earring, and dragon-skin boots.

Bellacine, startled, accepted a plate from Mrs. Weasley and took her seat.

"Ourmaung?" Ron stammered through a full mouth.

""Don't talk with your mouth full," his mother sighed.

"Mmph!"

"What does _mmph _mean?"

Ron began a one-handed, complex (or as complex as one can get with the use of only one hand) mime involving waving his left hand around for a bit, curiously alike to an orchestra conductor, although conductors generally retained the ability to make some sort of sense.

"He means the Malfoys, he means your summer, and how was it," his sister interpreted suddenly. Around the table everyone glowered at their plates; Mr. Weasley clenched his fist around his fork, stabbing it into his cake, which fell to one side.

"Well, it was okay," Bellacine said. "They were a bit mad about me ending up in Gryffindor- _at _me for ending up in Gryffindor- but I fed them the line about Sirius Black being in Gryffindor, and he ended up with the Dark Lord, so they took it rather well." They- she, Harry, Ron, and Hermione- had decided to tell no one, including family, _especially _family, what they had learned about Sirius; the Malfoys didn't know a thing about their plan, and so it had been a perfect excuse.

She looked up from her delicious cake to find most of the table- rather, those that didn't know her personally- giving her that suspicious, yet very innocent 'Who me? Suspicious? Of what?' expression she was sadly accustomed to receiving.

"Mum," Ron growled crossly. "Seriously. She's all right."

"Oh- oh yes, I know," said Mrs. Weasley hastily, looking flustered."Yes, yes, I know- Bellacine, dear- yes, of course, of course- boys!"

Fred and George had pushed back their chairs silently and begun to tiptoe out of the room while their mother spoke. Fred dove for the doorway upon hearing her voice, but Mrs. Weasley rapped her wand on the table like a gavel and they both came trudging back dejectedly.

"I haven't finished with you yet, boys! I told you when Bellacine came that you were not to leave the table until I have had my say. Now, I was cleaning you room this afternoon, and I found- _this_." She whipped out a long sheet of parchment that almost trailed onto the floor; to Bellacine, it looked like a list.

Fred stifled a grin.

George choked back a smile.

"Oh, that old thing," they chorused, but Bellacine also noticed the way they glanced from each other to the door (time to escape) to each other-

"Explain," Mrs. Weasley commanded sharply.

"It's nothing, just a prototype sort of thing," Fred explained hurriedly, following his mother's instructions to the letter, unfortunately. He caught himself a moment too late, as his mother shook the list in his face, she saw what it appeared to be: a price list, with a great deal of items that sounded like joke shop stuff, with a price amount in Knuts, Sickles, or Galleons after each.

"Prototype of what!" she shrieked. "So this is what you've been doing all summer, locked up in your room, frightening me half to _death _every time something goes _bang_- like as not you've been doing this all last year too- no wonder you barely got any O.W.L.s-"

"Mum," George began, looking seriously concerned.

"Don't you 'Mum' me, boys!"

"You know," said Bill, rising from his chair, "Mum, I think I'll go de-gnome the garden like you asked me to. Would anyone care to assist?"

Bellacine found herself agreeing with everybody else; although she hadn't the slightest clue what de-gnoming was, it was probably a wee bit less dangerous than the Weasley's kitchen at the moment.

"Yeah, we'll come too," Fred suggested brightly.

"You will _not_."

The rest of the table (excluding Mr. Weasley, who was semi-ordered to remain as well as the twins) flinched at this harsh order and quickly slipped out the back door to the kindly background music of Mrs. Weasley berating the twins.

"Two questions," said Bellacine to Hermione once they were free of the war zone, away from the house." "One, what was that about, and two, what on earth is de-gnoming?"

"One, they've apparently made a price list for a joke shop; I think they'd really like to open one," Ron said moodily. "Two, _this_"- he yanked what she had previously assumed to be a potato from the earth and twirled it a few times by its mop of brownish hair-"and this is de-gnoming." He swung the gnome about one last time and let it fly, which it did so, over the garden wall and into the field surrounding the Burrow.

"They always come back," Ginny said, a little sadly, "but Mum doesn't like them much at all. We have to get rid of them, Then they straggle back in and we've got to go outside and do it all over again." She ducked, narrowly escaping a flying gnome that Bill or Charlie had just thrown. "Where's Percy?"

Charlie bunted a gnome over the wall; it flew through the air with a loud whoop followed by a "Wheeee;"the second-floor window was thrust open and Percy stuck his head out.

If you would mind keeping that racket down!" Percy shouted. "I'm working on a very important report right now, I'll have you lot know!"

"Aw, shut up. Perce, we're not making noise," Bill shouted back. "It's the gnomes. Do we resemble gnomes?"

"No, but"-he glared wordlessly for a second before finding an argument- "this is really incredibly important, you've no idea at all- this is the Department of International Magical Cooperation, I'll have you know-"

"Oh," said Bellacine quickly, expecting this could be something interesting (a definite first for Percy, no?), "what do you do?"

"Cauldron bottoms!" he bellowed, going red in the face, "Cauldron bottoms! Did you realize that there is absolutely no standard thickness for cauldron bottoms? The British market is positively drowning in a deluge of shallow-bottomed imports-"

"I'll tell you who's shallow!" Charlie yelled, and let the gnome he was swinging rip directly at Percy's open window.

Percy slammed the window shut just in time, and the gnome hit the glass with a dull thud, sliding slowly down to the ground, quite unconscious.

They finished de-gnoming the garden; Bill and Charlie and Ginny went inside. She, Hermione, and Ron sat down on the back steps, which were crowded with a miscellaneous collection of boot-scrapers and rusty old watering cans.

"You know," Bellacine said, after a long silence while they all watched the red sun sink slowly below the garden wall, and, judging by the changing shadows, the horizon, "this is a nice house…." She had been gazing around the garden, which, for all its clutter and mess, looked much more comfortable than the Malfoy Manor ever had. Inside the bordering wall were a number of tall trees that screened the Burrow from the nearby Muggle village of Ottery St. Catchpole.

"It's all right," Ron mumbled, and kicked at a pebble, which skittered across the yard. "Not much to your place, I bet."

"This is better," she corrected. "That's like a mausoleum- you can actually tell people live here."

Shrugging disbelievingly, Ron stood. "Let's go inside." He led them up the rickety staircase, past the first-floor landing for Ginny's room and all the way to the top floor, where he opened the only door.

The room was orange. Very very orange. For a good thirty seconds, all her mind could process was _orange_. Once she got past _orange_, Bellacine saw that it was specifically Chudley Cannons orange. Somewhere in her mind in a very snide place that hopefully had no connection to her vocal cords, a voice was whispering, _He's miserably poor and now he supports the Cannons too?_

Apart from that, Ron's room (presumably) was as crowded as Ginny's, with three cots shoved in between the bed and the window; a glass cage containing a frog beneath that. In terms of human life, aside from the three who had just entered, there appeared to be no one else…until she heard a long, drawn-out noise issuing forth from the other side of the room.

"What _is _that?" she asked quickly; Ron rolled his eyes, crossing his room to stand by the window.

"Look up there." He pointed towards the ceiling; she glanced up and saw the outline of a trapdoor. "No, that's not Fred and George hiding out in the attic being the gits that they are. What it is, I'm the luckiest person in the house. Lucky enough to have the only bedroom directly underneath the favorite hideout of the world's loudest, smelliest, most revolting ghoul, that's me."

Hermione winced. "And this ghoul, you can't get rid of it?"

"Nope. Dad's tried everything. I think it moved in around the time Charlie was born, but it used to be a whole lot nicer"- he broke off at the sound of a loud wailing sound- "quieter, too."

* * *

Ginny bolted upright in her bed early Sunday morning, much too early for any normal person, to Bellacine's chagrin. "Harry's coming today!" she gasped excitedly. "Ron said so, he's coming! Today!"

"Why do I care?" Bellacine mumbled, bleary-eyed.

Hermione rolled over on her cot and gestured for her to lean closer, which she did. She whispered quickly, "She fancies him- has for ages." They leant apart as Ginny glanced at them. "Yeah, it's been like this for a while," Hermione continued. "I think it always has been, or at least for a long time-"

"What?" said Ron's sister sharply. "What are you talking about?" She didn't wait for an answer, however, and within seconds had bounced happily out of bed and downstairs with great excitement. "Hurry up!" she shouted up the stairs on her way down. "He could be here any minute!"

"Right, like he's going to show up at dawn," she muttered grumpily, falling backwards.

A quarter hour later, at least, Hermione leaned over her and said, "Are you going to lay there the whole day staring at the ceiling or are you going to get up? Everyone else is up already. You want proof? Look"- she wrenched open the drapes; Bellacine winced- "the sun's up."

"I hate sunshine," she mused. "I like staring at the ceiling. It's a very pleasant view of it that I have from here. Look at it, Hermione. Isn't it beautiful?" Her friend stared momentarily at Bellacine, then turned swiftly to stare at the ceiling. "Made you look," she laughed, and, turning into the black cat, dove hastily under the cot.

There was a brief pause, during which she assumed Hermione was looking for her in a room with relatively few spots to hide a fourteen-year-old girl; just as she made to sneak behind Hermione and duck out the door- she'd pop up downstairs and surprise her- Hermione bent over and peered beneath the bed.

"What did you do that for, you idiot!" she half-whispered angrily. "It's bad enough you're an Anima- well- one of _them_- without even being registered, and you promised Professor Dumbledore you wouldn't do a thing with it unless it was absolutely necessary- you can't go around transforming in a place like this, you barely know half the people in this house, just imagine if someone like Percy caught you- STOP IT!"

For the cat that was Bellacine had streaked out from her hiding place to the far, empty wall, out of view of anyone in the back-yard or anyone who would suddenly open the door, and begun to flash quickly between her two forms. "Stop what?" she asked, with an innocent smile, as she took- and retained- her human shape.

"You know what I mean," she said tersely. "Just- would you please stop changing back and forth and back and forth and back-"

"It saved my life once," Bellacine interjected quietly before Hermione could really get going on a rant. "It did and you know it did. If I hadn't known enough then it's not likely that I'd be here now,"

"That's very nice and all, I understand what happened back at Durmstrang, but it's not last year anymore—You're perfectly safe now- nobody's trying to attack you or anything, both in the real world and in your supposed mental world where Lupin is evil- you're only doing this to show off-"

"So quoth she who answers every question in every single class with the direct quotations they've memorized from the textbooks," she complained.

Hermione pointed out, "You answer quite a bit too."

"Hermione," sighed Bellacine, "I read through the book once at the beginning of the year and once before exams. I don't sit up in bed every single night revising even when we don't have an exam coming up. I don't waste my time like that."

Hermione threw up her hands in exasperation, surrendering altogether. They headed downstairs for breakfast- she had found Mrs. Weasley to be an excellent cook, proven more so by finding Fred and George with their mouths stuffed full at the breakfast table.

"Enreleeinorrow?" Fred coughed.

Mrs. Weasley frowned disapprovingly at him until he chewed, swallowed, and repeated, "When are we leaving tomorrow?" The World Cup was that Monday, the next day, and as of that moment Bellacine had no idea how they would be reaching the location.

"Early," George muttered, and pretended to stifle a yawn. "Much too early, because of course _we _can't Apparate so of course _we _have to go find a Portkey that's likely in New Zealand-"

"It's on Stoatshead Hill," put in Mr. Weasley, unfolding the _Daily Prophet_. "I've told you boys before, under no circumstances will you be allowed to Apparate before passing your tests, or you're going to get yourselves Splinched."

"Or you'll end up like me and reappear five miles off target on top of some old grandmotherly-type Muggle out doing her shopping. Nearly gave her a heart attack, I did," Charlie added ruefully.

"Thank you, Charlie," Fred said dryly. "Not only do we have to be short like you, you've cursed us with the gift of failing miserably at our Apparition tests!"

Afterwards Bellacine went out into the back-yard with Ginny, Hermione, and Ron- he and Ginny wanted to play two-on-two Quidditch but Hermione was horrible and she still staunchly refused to play. But for the first time in a long time she truly wanted to, for no reason, she had the urge back in her again….

To fly was acceptable, alone, away from others- away from anyone who could be hurt, because it had been her fault once and she would never again give it the opportunity. Hardly did it hurt so bad, now, she had noticed over the summer that there was a distance between the events of two years ago, but guilt kept her the way she was. To play was not acceptable, dangerous, even; an insult of the worst kind, perhaps, to his memory….

Instead she climbed into one of the leafy green trees surrounding the Burrow's yard, because it felt like being high off the ground on a broom, gliding, flying, hovering. Ron and Ginny played on their own; both were decent players although she found Ginny to be quite a bit better. Ron kept glancing at the ground, like he needed a reminder it was there.

The name of the star from which the planet earth receives light is Sol. Sol moved slowly in its diurnal course.

At five o'clock Mrs. Weasley called Ron inside; he, the twins, and their father departed by Floo to the Muggle house where Harry stayed during the holidays. With no Quidditch game- not that there had been much of one in the first place- to keep the girls occupied, they went inside and were summarily roped into helping with dinner. Bill and Charlie sat at the kitchen table trying to figure out the Sunday crossword; only Percy was AWOL- upstairs, working, she presumed.

The fireplace she had come out of a few days previously begin to fill with green light and a single figure came spinning out of it. Fred jumped into the kitchen, laughing hard. Seconds later, a larger figure- no, just George and a trunk- came, also gasping with mirth. Third was Ron.

Almost before the boys moved out of the way, Harry toppled out of the fireplace too, and judging by his face, he was far from experienced with Floo Powder. Before he had eve stood properly, Fred was interrogating him, and she and Hermione soon found out why they were so breathlessly in hysterics: The twins had tricked Harry's Muggle cousin Dudley into sampling one of their joke shop inventions, Ton-Tongue Toffee, which had the desired effect.

Then, all too soon, Mr. Weasley returned and began to reprimand the twins; Mrs. Weasley had overheard enough by now and joined in. She, Ron, Hermione, and Harry, trailed closely by Ginny, made their usual, narrow escape to his bedroom.

"What's Weasley's Wizard Wheezes?" he asked as they climbed upstairs. Ron laughed.

"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's room," he explained quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, you know. Loads of stuff. It was brilliant. Only most of the stuff- well, all of it, really- was a bit dangerous and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of it, and burned the order forms….She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get near as many O.W.L.'s as she expected."

She wanted so badly to ask Harry if recently he had heard from Sirius, but she didn't dare mention him while Ginny was around. Bellacine hadn't been able to write Sirius herself, partly because she didn't have her own owl and partly because the Malfoys would start to ask uncomfortable questions if they found her writing to an uncle who was a fugitive from the law. The only contact she had had with him since his second escape was one letter, towards the beginning of the holidays. But later that evening as they are, outside, Ron surreptitiously checked to make sure the rest of his family was engaged in a debate about the World Cup and softly said, "So- _have _you heard from Sirius lately?"

Bellacine and Hermione leaned in closer, until they were forming a peak of sorts over the table.

"Yeah, twice since July," Harry whispered. "He sounds okay. I wrote to him yesterday, He might write back while I'm here."

She considered grilling Harry for more information; how Sirius was doing on the run, where he was (if they knew) ; at the same time, she started to feel angry- how could this even be fair, that Harry had open lines of communication with Sirius but she herself hadn't heard from him in ages, he was her uncle, didn't she have the right-?

"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley announced suddenly; Bellacine jumped, startled. "You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you- you'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Harry, Bellacine, I'll get your school things for you if you leave your lists out. Oh"- she glanced at her, frowning-" do you- have money with you, or ought I to get it from Gringotts- that is-"

"I have one- well, it's not mine, it's the family's, but I'm the only one who can get into it now, because somehow Sirius has been blocked. We found out last year, after he escaped, we were checking to make sure it was all safe," she said in a rush, feeling awkward discussing money in front of the Weasleys. "That is- as far as we know, but most likely, yes." She shot Hermione a get-me-out-of-this-now grimace.

Very helpfully, Hermione compliantly interjected, "If we're getting up early oughtn't we to go to bed? Thanks for dinner, Mrs. Weasley, it was excellent."

Grateful for the escape, Bellacine thanked Ron's mother with everyone else and went to Ginny's room with the other girls. She took the cot near the cot near the window, shifting on her side to avoid being poked by a protruding spring, staring out the window.

For the first time in a long time it occurred to her to miss her parents- moreover, that she was jealous of her friend's contact with Sirius because he was her most genuine living link with her father, with parents she had never known and had no right to miss. But there was no sense in fretting, or in missing them: She drifted to sleep.

* * *

All too soon Mrs. Weaskey was knocking at Ginny's door, calling for them to wake up. This time Bellacine was the first one out of bed, merely to be contrary, and she dressed. When Hermione opened her eyes a few minutes later the first thing she said was, "You're meant to look like a Muggle, not a witch."

She almost retorted that she was a witch, a pureblood at that, and had no wish to associate herself unduly with the Muggle class, then recalled Hermione's birth and decided maybe this wasn't such a great idea. Instead she rejoined. "I haven't got any Muggle clothing though, have I?"

By this time Ginny was out of bed as well, digging through her wardrobe, where she located several oldish pieces of mismatched non-magical clothing, and loaned jeans and a long-sleeve jersey to Bellacine. Examining this outfit in the mirror, she plucked at the sleeve anxiously. "I still don't see why-" she began.

"Because we have to find the Portkey inconspicuously, and if Muggles come across us while we're dressed as witches-"

"Which we are-"

"There'll be too many awkward questions that nobody will want to answer truthfully."

"So lie, then," Bellacine responded cheerfully. "They're Muggles, Hermione, they never notice what's right under their noses. Come to think of it, they never notice anything five feet from their noses either, or they might've thought to worry about the masses of people running into a wall at King's Cross."

"That's not a big deal," she mocked. "You've run into walls before- the solid kind, mind you. I think I'll buy a little flashing red light and attach it to the walls so you notice them."

"People running into walls is nothing new, same as talking to inanimate objects. Ron runs into doors all the time. So do Fred and George, although I suspect they do it for the laughs. Funny sense of humor they've got, eh? Harry actually has apologized to a wall after walking into it. Peeves once put a rubbish bin in the hallway one day and two kids walked straight into it without realizing a thing. Supposedly Lupin fell in, but it was the day after the full moon, admittedly, so at least he had something of an excuse."

"That really was a pity," Ginny said as she dressed. "About Professor Lupin being a werewolf," she clarified. "He was the best teacher we've ever had. Before him it was Gilderoy Lockhart, and he almost got me trapped in the Chamber of Secrets."

"Be glad you missed out on Professor Quirrell," Hermione muttered. "Nothing worse than your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher having You-Know-Who sticking out the back of his head."

"Girls, hurry up!" called Mrs. Weasley from the hallway. "The boys have been waiting for ten minutes!"

They went downstairs, into the kitchen, where Harry, Ron, the twins, and Mr. Weasley waited. All were clad in sometimes-odd-looking Muggle clothing; Mr. Weasley juggled a bag that likely contained their tents and other camping equipment, and a thermos of coffee. Ginny moaned, "Why do we have to be up so early?" and rubbed her eyes.

"We've got a bit of a walk," said her father. "No, not to the Cup itself- that's miles away. We only need to walk a short distance. It's just that it's very difficult for a large number of wizards to congregate without attracting Muggle attention. We have to be very careful about how we travel at the best of times, and on a huge occasion like the World Cup-"

"George!" Mrs. Weasley reprimanded sharply.

George let out an innocent "What?"

"What is that in your pocket?"

"Nothing!"

"Don't you lie to me! _Accio_!" She pointed her wand at George's pocket and several small golden objects that looked a bit like misshapen snitches zoomed out. George made a grab for them but missed. "We told you to get rid of them!" she shouted furiously, holding in her other hand many gold-foil wrapped sweets, presumably the Ton-Tongue Toffees of legend. "We told you to get rid of the lot! Empty your pockets, go on, both of you!"

In the end Mrs. Weasley managed to extract a number of the toffees from every unlikely place Fred and George could think of to hide them (she had to admire taping them on Fred's neck, where his hair and the collar of his jacket just covered the hiding place) only by using the Summoning Spell. Finally their group departed from the Burrow; they trekked around the outskirts of Ottery St. Catchpole. Harry caught up with Mr., Weasley to have a conversation about the technicalities of a large group of wizards assembling in one place.

When she caught his voice saying, "People with cheaper tickets have to arrive two weeks beforehand…." it occurred to her that this implied not only that they had decently good seats, but it struck Bellacine that the rather poor Weasleys were paying for her ticket when she could've at least gotten something from the Malfoys.

Oh. Well then.

She didn't speak up, mainly because they were now climbing a very steep hill, stumbling in the dark into abandoned rabbit holes, and she was getting short of breath. Hermione, panting, muttered something nonsensical about white rabbits and pocket-watches that she didn't quite catch.

"Now we just need to find the Portkey," Mr. Weasley gasped upon cresting the hill, sounding as if it would be no mean feat. "It won't be big…..Come on….."

They had only been examining the dewy, scraggly-weed-covered ground for a few minutes when the air was rent by a summons.

"Over here, Arthur! Over here, son! I've got it!"

Two tall figures were outlined by the still-starry, yet paling into grey, pre-dawn sky. If she didn't know any better, she'd have sworn they looked as if they were about to be beamed up into space any moment.

Mr. Weasley led them over to a red-faced, jocular looking wizard with a beard holding a rotting leather boot. "This is Amos Diggory, everyone," he introduced the man. "He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you know his son, Cedric?"

For a tense moment the school-age people present stared wordlessly at each other: She knew Cedric to be the Captain and Seeker for Hufflepuff, the team which had given Gryffindor its first-ever defeat of the Harry Potter team the previous year. Admittedly it had been far from Harry's fault. Bellacine herself had missed the actual climax due to an intriguing combination of horrid weather and flashbacks to some rather awful memories, but as she had heard, it was terrible.

"Long walk, Arthur?" Mr. Diggory offered.

"Not too bad. We just live on the other side of the village there. You?"

"Had to get up at two, didn't we, Ced? I tell you, I'll be glad when he's got his Apparition test. Still…not complaining…Quidditch World Cup, wouldn't miss it for a sackful of Galleons- and the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I got off easy…." Mr. Diggory nodded to the Weasley children present, Harry, Hermione, and Bellacine. "All these yours, Arthur?"

"Oh, no, only the redheads," he responded. "The girls are Hermione and Bellacine, friends of Ron's- and Harry, another friend-"

"Merlin's beard," Diggory interrupted astoundedly. "Harry? Harry _Potter_?"

Bellacine restrained a snort as Cedric's father's eyes widened; he glanced at Harry's scar for a time longer than an ordinary glance, and then into his face again. It always happened. Everyone noticed Harry the Infinitely Wonderful and Saviour of the World first, and often only. Not that she minded. Nice change from the Black look of doom.

"Ced's talked about you, of course: he continued, still staring at Harry. "Told us all about playing against you last year….I said to him, I said- Ced, that'll be something to tell your grandchildren, that will….You beat Harry Potter!"

"Dad-" began Cedric, clearly embarrassed. "Dad, I told you-"

"Must be nearly time!" Mr. Weasley shouted genially, checking the time on his battered watch again. "Do you know whether we're waiting for any more, Amos?"

"No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn't get tickets," Diggory said. "There aren't any more of us in the area, are there?"

"Not that I know of," said Mr. Weasley. "Yes, it's a minute off….We'd better get ready…."

They crowded around the mouldy boot, shifting to allow room for their large bags of camping equipment. Mr. Weasley, watching the second hand of his watch, began the countdown: "Three…two…one…."

Immediately Bellacine felt a rush, a flash of azure imprint itself on the inside of her eyelids, which she had blinked closed in anticipation, foresight. She felt the invisible power of the Portkey dragging her forwards; she was dimly aware that this strange form of motion likely disrupted several of those strange Muggle theories about apples and trees. (see footnote)

That was their fault, then.

They crashed sharply onto a grassy stretch somewhere; at Ron's end of the apparatus a domino effect began and she found herself toppled over. The sky felt dizzy as her head when she looked at it. The only travelers that remained standing were Mr. Weasley, Mr. Diggory, and Cedric.

"Seven past five from Stoatshead Hill," said an unfamiliar voice.

She disentangled herself from the mess of people and rucksacks and stood. They had arrived onto a stretch of moor covered in a heavy mist that seemed none too eager to dispel. She could hardly see the two wizards standing a yard away from them, one of which was now collecting the used Portkey from Mr. Weasley. Nor could she see anything else farther away than, say, her hand. It was an almost eerie atmosphere and she half-expected a voice to suddenly speak from the early-morning fog around them, so it hardly came as a surprise when it happened.

Someone else interrupted Mr. Weasley and the tired wizard, Basil; he asked in accented English the time of arrival for the next Portkey, from the Black Forest: It was Leszek.

* * *

Footnote: Genesis, Sir Isaac Newton, what's the difference?


	3. Chapter 3 Thirteen Years

**A/N: Does anyone know of a mental disorder that makes teachers forget they've let you go to the library (to type, but they don't know that) every day for the past two weeks, something technically forbidden in the student handbook? Apparently so.**

* * *

"What are you doing here?" they said at the same moment.

"Yes, yes, you'd better get out of the way, we've a big party coming through from the Black Forest in fifteen minutes. Hello, Arthur, I'll find your campsite...not on duty, eh? Lucky. We've been here all night. Hang on, hang on...Weasley...Weasley...About a quarter of a mile's walk over there, first field you come to. Site manager's called Mr. Roberts. Diggory..."

Mr. Weasley collected from Basil a map of the campsite and turned to them. "Right, follow me, we'll have to set up camp before the others get here...Who is that?" He had caught sight of Leszek, who stood on their outskirts of their group. "I'm sorry, were you with our Portkey? I didn't notice...?"

Bellacine glanced at him. "Actually, Mr. Weasley, I kind of know him from Durmstrang. He's- what are you doing here, incidentally?" she repeated.

"Well, I assumed I was here for the World Cup...Oh, you mean why I'm hanging about here, Right, so nobody else from my family is coming to the Cup, but Reinhardt is, and his family, so I'm staying with them while it lasts. I'm waiting for their Portkey to show up- it's them, and Anna and that one who's good at Potions, they're the only people I know from the area," Leszek said.

Mr. Weasley nodded several times. "Pleased to meet you." Harry, Hermione, and Ron were looking on with interest and suddenly she felt very foreign, in a world apart from theirs, which intersected only at intervals. "All right, we need to find field one now and set up camp...are you staying or coming?" he asked her. She considered it.

"I'll stay a few minutes. Field one is that way, right?"

"Yes, that's right," answered Mr. Weasley, and they left, heading off towards the right. Presently they were lost in the thick mist and she, Leszek, and the two wizards working the Portkeys stood alone in the crisp, chilly morning. The sky, from here, was the same white-grey colour as the fog surrounding them; perhaps the sun had risen but it was hard to tell.

"look, it's coming," he said suddenly; following his gaze upwards she saw bright blue, spinning like a Catherine Wheel, plummeting down. It appeared quite dangerous from this perspective, watching it land from below. The spokes of the wheel- the passengers themselves- seemed unaware of anything. The Portkey hit the ground hard.

"Twenty-two past five from the Black Forest," Basil said flatly, flipping the cover of his pocket watch repeatedly. One of the wizards handed him the broken-off neck of a glass bottle, which he tossed into the box of used Portkeys. "Fueur- right, we'll come back to that; do we have a Rommel or a Schroeder?" Without waiting for a response the wizard flipped through his book of parchment. "You two are both fourth field, look for a Mr. Nelson and he will give you your instructions. And Fueurborn, is that right, you're on the fifth field and need a Mr. Farnon."

The Black Forest group, except for Reinhardt, remained where they were. Reinhardt shook himself out a little and asked Basil, "Can you repeat that, slower? My friends and I, English is not..."

"Look, they're not from around here," Bellacine spoke up. "They don't speak English that well, not all of them. And you're pronouncing Fueurborn incorrectly." She turned to the group and repeated the instructions. After a quick conference all but Reinhardt departed for their respective campgrounds.

Immediately Reinhardt looked to her. "I didn't expect to find you here this early. You know Vasily and his family aren't coming, don't you?"

"Yeah." It felt strange to her, because these were Vasily's friends, not hers, and she didn't know them at all except for things like Quidditch and school life in general, but she didn't terribly mind. At Hogwarts she was dead unpopular with most people, albeit well-known and nothing more. The past few days, spent at the Weasleys' and now, people she barely knew, were a welcome change.

"Come on, when you two see the Bulgarian camp you won't believe it." Leszek gestured to the right. They followed him across a windswept moor- it had become much lighter in the past fifteen minutes and the heat of the sun began to burn off the mist- until they walked into Bellacine thought at first glance was an amassed collection of small hills protruding from the ground, smothered in something like grass.

"Slytherin brainwashing technique?" she commented.

"What's that? No, it's the Irish," Leszek explained. "Look at them- it's tents like anywhere but they're covered in shamrocks."

She now saw these hillocks were in fact decorated with an over-abundance of the small iconic plants, excited faces peering out of half-opened flaps and a Primus stove smoking away before one shelter while sparkling purple flames roared in front of another in sharp disparity. A few people greeted them as they passed; without thinking, Leszek automatically replied in Polish and after that the Irish, withdrawing coldly, left them alone.

"They seriously think that was Bulgarian?" Reinhardt muttered sceptically. "They're all the same...couldn't find Bulgaria on a map to save their lives...probably can't find Britain either, now that I think, or Germany, or Poland."

"Speaking of which," Leszek said grimly, "wait until you see the Bulgarians."

"Who's on their team again?"

"Volkov, Vulchanov, Dimitrov, er..."

"Levski, Ivanova, Zograf..."

"And the tsarevitch himself," Reinhardt finished, raising his hand in a mock toast with an imaginary glass. "I swear. If they win this year we won't even be able to return to school without losing our minds. That would be the last thing we need- what's _that_?"

"Bulgaria," Leszek said tonelessly.

Ireland had been tolerable enough, as the greenery it was covered in blended perfectly with the rest of the campground and was hardly obtrusive. Bulgaria was an altogether different matter. Their tents, which were all flying the Bulgarian flag (white, green, red) bore no other decoration in common but for a superfluity of posters of Viktor Krum which were plastered over the tents in the same way that shamrocks swathed the Irish.

Bellacine shook her head dismally. "Do we really hope anyone in particular is going to win?" she sighed. "Or are we just here for our own personal entertainment?"

"Personal entertainment, definitely," replied Reinhardt listlessly.

Leszek shrugged. "Bulgaria I would prefer over Ireland if it wasn't for Krum. I have no stake in this, though; I don't care. Bulgaria'll lose to Ireland within- two days at the most. They have one good player, whereas Ireland has a good team."

"I've seen it, I've even believed it, and now I'm getting to be quite sick of the whole country, Leszek," she remarked. "I need to find the Weasleys soon- which way's the second field?" He led them off around the long, snaking line for one of the sparsely located taps and through another campground in an easterly direction, this one free of predominant national ties. She occasionally spied other Hogwarts students, and circumnavigating another tap she found Harry, Ron, and Hermione amongst them with a few filled pails of water.

Bellacine hurried up to catch them. "Hey," she panted, "where've you been?"

"Getting water, what does it look like?" Ron retorted dryly.

"Yeah, I noticed. Oh...right, these are some people I knew from Durmstrang- Reinhardt and Leszek, they're a couple years above me. This is Hermione, Harry, Ron"- she introduced each in turn; the Durmstrang boys took more notice of Harry's lightening scar than they did of Harry himself.

They parted ways, Reinhardt and Leszek to the fifth field, she with her Hogwarts friends to the Weasleys' field. Her friends seemed to hold a renewed curiosity about Durmstrang but said nothing. It was patently obvious that Harry was awed by the extent of the Wizarding world, while in Hermione, for all her sighs of "Don't you know that?" the impression was harder to see.

Mr. Weasley was having a grand old time failing miserably with matchsticks, little red-tipped pieces of wood that were supposed to burst into flame when struck on rough surfaces. At first Bellacine had not the slightest idea why he was muddling about with Muggle devices, until she learned just how far the true extent of his obsession with all things Muggle could go. It must have been an hour until they got a proper fire going, although it was small, and commenced to prepare lunch. Just as the sausages finished, Percy, Bill, and Charlie arrived.

Halfway through their meal, Ron's father, who had kept up a running commentary on passing wizards he recognized from work with the Ministry jumped up, spilling his plate and waving enthusiastically to the tall man approaching them. "Aha! The man of the moment! Ludo!"

Bounding over to their campsite was a blond-haired, blue-eyed man wearing vibrant bumblebee-striped robes that would have made him appear a dolt had they not been an old Wimbourne Wasps uniform. "Arthur, old man," he gasped; the uniform he wore was now tight and ill-fitting, "what a day, eh? What a day! Could we have asked for more perfect weather? A cloudless night coming...and hardly a hiccough in the arrangements...Not much for me to do!"

Given the bright purple fire rocketing several feet above the tents a hundred metres away, she doubted it.

Percy hastened to greet him; his sycophantic nature apparently outweighing his obvious dislike of the man's lack of formality. Mr. Weasley introduced the rest of them: "and this is Fred- no, George, sorry- _that's_ Fred- Bill, Charlie, Ron- my daughter, Ginny- and these are Ron's friends, Hermione Granger, Bellacine, and Harry Potter."

Ludo made a small double-take.

"Everyone," Mr. Weasley continued, "this is Ludo Bagman, you know who he is- it's thanks to him we got such good tickets."

Bagman grinned and waved Mr. Weasley's thanks off; jingling a bulging pocketful of gold he asked, "Fancy a flutter on the match, Arthur? I've already got Roddy Pontner betting me Bulgaria will score first- I offered him nice odds, considering Ireland's front three are the strongest I've seen in years- and little Agatha Timms has put up half shares on her eel farm for a weeklong match."

"Oh...go on then," he conceded, digging into his pocket. "Let's see...a Galleon on Ireland to win?"

"A Galleon?" Bagman repeated, looking disappointed, but he smiled cheerily nevertheless. "Well then...any other takers?"

"They're a bit young to be gambling...," Mr. Weasley began, but it was too late: The twins proceeded to pool their money and stake it all on an event that would make the Infinite Improbability Drive wince, that Ireland would win but Krum would catch the Snitch. Pure utter Irish bull. Despite their father's warnings and Percy's protests Fred threw in a fake wand that he likely had smuggled from the Burrow that morning.

"Couldn't do me a brew, I suppose?" Bagman asked, nodding towards the kettle over the camp fire. "I'm keeping an eye out for Barty Crouch. My Bulgarian opposite number's making difficulties, and I can't understand a word he's saying. Barty'll be able to sort it out. He speaks about a hundred and fifty languages anyway."

"Mr. Crouch?" repeated Percy, an expression of reverence and awe suddenly upon his face. "He speaks over two hundred! Mermish and Gobbledegook and Troll..."

"Anyone can speak Troll," said Fred dismissively, "all you have to do is point and grunt," much to the chagrin of his elder brother, who pinned and dissected him with a glare as he continued listing Crouch's tongues.

"Any news of Bertha Jorkins yet, Ludo?" asked Mr. Weasley as Percy stoked the fire and Bagman sat on the ground, reaching for a mug of tea.

"Not a dicky bird, but she'll turn up. Poor old Bertha...memory like a leaky cauldron and no sense of direction. Lost, you take my word for it. She'll wander back into the office sometime in October, thinking it's July."

"You don't think it might be time to send someone to look for her?" he suggested gently. "She's been gone for-"

"Barty Crouch keeps saying that, but we really can't spare anyone at the moment. Oh- talk of the devil! Barty!"

A tall, rigid wizard had just Apparated by the campfire. Impeccably dressed in Muggle clothing, though the clothes he wore were too formal for the setting, he sported a tidy gray Hitler-esque moustache. She saw immediately why Percy revered his boss so much: he, like Percy, appeared a fastidious follower of regulations, to the letter.

"Pull up a bit of grass, Barty," Bagman offered, grinning comfortably.

"No thank you, Ludo," Crouch said impatiently. "I've been looking for you everywhere. The Bulgarians are insisting we add another twelve seats to the Top Box."

"Oh, is _that_ what they're after?" said Bagman. "I thought the chap was looking to borrow a pair of tweezers. Bit of a strong accent."

Percy, bent over in a half-bow that made him appear more hunchbacked than respectful and servile, solicitously asked, "Mr Crouch! Would you like a cup of tea?"

"No thank you, Weatherby," he declined carelessly.

Fred and George both snorted into their tea while Mr. Weasley and Mr. Crouch went into a dialogue about flying carpets. Eventually Crouch and Bagman hurried off- just as Bagman began to broach the subject of the Triwizard Tournament which clearly none of the other knew about, though Mr. Weasley must have. Why he hadn't told them yet was anyone's guess; Bellacine herself chose not to share as well. They could figure it out on their own, and be held in suspense meanwhile.

At dusk they set off for the stadium amidst palpable excitement- all afternoon focusing on any one task had been impossible. They navigated their way through the crowds surging towards the stadium- spectators practically fighting their way in and saleswizards hawking goods. Every few feet there was another stand, selling flags that sag the national anthem and rosettes of the appropriate colour. Of all the Weasleys, only the twins bought nothing, after spending all their funds on the impossible bet with Mr. Bagman. Harry went to a saleswizard selling Omnioculars.

"You can replay action...slow everything down...and they'll flash up a play-by-play if you need it," the wizard enthused eagerly. "Bargain- ten Galleons each."

"Wish I hadn't spent all my money now," Ron groaned, looking angrily at his Ireland rosette. Harry glanced at him-

"You buy for Ron and yourself, I'll pay for Hermione's and mine," Bellacine advised quickly. She dug out a handful of gold coins before anyone could protest and bought a pair of Omnioculars, handing one to Hermione, who purchased programs enough for the four of them.

"It's time!" called Mr. Weasley.

They assimilated under a tree close to the edge of the woods; even Percy held souvenirs.

"Come on, let's go!

* * *

They walked for about twenty minutes down a lantern-lit pathway clogged by witches and wizards through the woods, laughing and joking, all in high spirits. The trees began to thin, until without warning Bellacine found herself staring at an immense gold wall. It was only a fraction of the size of the stadium, and she knew on sight that it was massive enough to hold several copies of Durmstrang within its walls.

"Seats a hundred thousand," said Mr. Weasley proudly. "Ministry task force of five hundred have been working on it all year. Muggle-Repelling Charms on every inch of it. Every time Muggles have gotten anywhere near here all year they've suddenly remembered urgent appointments and had to dash away again…bless them," he added as a fond afterthought, leading the way to an entrance already swarming with clamoring people.

"Prime seats!" exclaimed the witch checking their tickets. "Top Box! Straight upstairs, Arthur, and as high as you can go!"

"The Top Box?" Bellacine repeated incredulously as they climbed up purple-carpeted stairs, other spectators gradually siphoning off through doors to either side. "We're in the Top Box?"

"Mr. Bagman got us tickets, remember?" Ginny gasped; the stairs were getting steep and they had been ascending for a long time already. Finally they reached the zenith, strategically situated between the opposing goalposts, a box-shaped array of purple-and-gilt chairs. They filed into the front row.

She gazed around the stadium, at the hundred thousand seats being slowly filled, the smooth green field that resembled a carpet of waveless green water from her high location, all illuminated by a golden glow that seemed to be emitting from the stadium itself. A blackboard at least the size of a house on the other side of the field displayed advertisements before the match began.

The Top Box was so far empty all the way to her left; Bellacine glanced to her right. At the same instant she and Harry caught sight of a house-elf in the second-from-last seat.

"Dobby?" Harry exclaimed, astonished.

What on earth? As far as she knew, the only house-elf by the name of Dobby in existence at present had belonged to the Malfoys until recently (and though he served the Malfoys, not the Blacks, he had taken orders from her also, whether because of her mother or some other command she did not know).

"Did sir just call me Dobby?" the elf squeaked, and Bellacine flinched at its high-pitched voice. So this elf was a girl then, and more the pity. "But I know Dobby too, sir!" The Weasleys were staring now. The house-elf shielded her eyes, burying them in her hands inexplicably. "My name is Winky, sir—and you, sir—you is surely Harry Potter!"

"Yeah, I am," Harry said, clearly embarrassed. He and the house-elf proceeded into a long-winded anecdote about Dobby, and it certainly began to seem as if they discussed the Malfoys' former elf, but how Harry knew him, she couldn't ascertain. Instead Bellacine scanned the crowds, or at least the ten or so rows closest to them, for any familiar faces. She didn't spot anyone from Durmstrang or Hogwarts- and then- there- a face she knew, but most unwelcome.

It was Lucius Malfoy, and he, with Narcissa and Draco, was headed directly towards the Top Box.

Bellacine dived for the ground, half-bent in her chair. Hermione, who had been flipping through her program, glanced sideways at her. "Are you all right? What's going on-?"

"Hermione," she whispered urgently, "Hermione, hide me. They're coming."

She frowned blankly until Bellacine pointed surreptitiously to the Malfoys, still headed on their straight course to the Top Box. "I can't do anything about it! Where're you supposed to hide in a place like—Harry, oh Merlin, why doesn't he ever have his Invisibility Cloak—you're an Animagus so _do something!_"

She hastened to shove her Omnioculars at Hermione's hand, quickly whispered, "I'm sick and I went back to the tent if anyone asks," and dove for the floor, turning once she hit the ground- Hermione moved to shield this from sight- and snuck under the row of chairs without being seen.

For a few calm minutes, not a thing happened but for the arrival of several Ministry of Magic wizards, most notably a group of Bulgarians escorted by Fudge himself, who greeted Harry effusively. It seemed to take the Bulgarians a bit longer to recognize him. "Knew we'd get there in the end," she heard Fudge sigh loudly after a sudden spurt of Bulgarian apparently signaling a breakthrough. "I'm no great shakes at languages; I need Barty Crouch for this sort of thing. Ah, I see his house-elf's saving him a seat." So that was Winky's master, then, Mr. Crouch. It hardly crossed her mind to wonder why he was absent presently. "Good job, too, these Bulgarian blighters are trying to cadge all the best places- ah, and here's Lucius!"

Bellacine tensed; though she would likely not be discovered and even then, it wouldn't appear to them to be her, but for the Weasleys it must have been a nasty shock. From the soft voices she heard above, her uncle' smooth drawl and Mr. Weasley's best polite tones, it was indeed. The Malfoys took their seats moments later, and suddenly a hush descended upon the stadium.

"Ladies and gentlemen…welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!" Ludo Bagman announced. With a brief delay of only a few seconds she heard his voice replayed ,a hundred times louder, throughout the stadium amidst screaming crowds and a thousand different repetitions of the Irish and Bulgarian national anthems.

"And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce…the Bulgarian National Team Mascots!"

Loud cheering and a strange, unearthly sort of music filled the stadium; it began slowly and grew faster and faster; Harry and Ron and the rest of the Weasley boys were on their feet, and there was a small fluttering sort of breeze from the empty seat next to Winky. The music stopped suddenly and the crowds roared; whatever the Bulgarians had brought was certainly received well.

"And now…kindly put your wands in the air for…the Irish National Team Mascots!"

There was a whooshing sound, at first faint but rapidly growing stronger, like a small creek expanding into a vast swollen river with a fast current rushing past- she saw the glimmer of golden- and rainbow-colored light falling down on the stadium. Golden rain began to fall, though it was something more substantial than rain, it was _hard_-

"Excellent!" she heard Ron shout as gold coins showered down on them, bouncing everywhere and soon half the people everywhere were diving for them. She darted to the far corner of the Top Box, under the seat reserved for Mr. Crouch that was still empty, keeping all the while pressed closely against the wall. None of the leprechaun gold scattered anywhere near her, though it bounced under all the other seats; there was another faint fluttering breeze like a small motion from above where she hid.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team! I give you- Dimitrov!"

A roar from the crowd.

"Ivanova! Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov!"

Louder roars. Hardly worth her notice.

"Aaaaaand Krum!"

The roaring and cheering welcoming Krum was the loudest yet; Bellacine could literally feel the stands shaking as thousands of spectators leapt to their feet at once. She could imagine the scene above, Krum practically basking in his glory, or perhaps the Irish team was about to be announced--

She could have sworn she saw something, unexpected, inexplicable, but only for a very brief moment, and it was gone. Startled, she barely restrained herself as she dashed beneath the row of chairs, and now she was under Bill's seat. It was time to get out of the Top Box. It was pointless to wait anyway, she would only increase the chances of being seen, and the shock she had just had did nothing but make her want to get out quicker.

So how did one exit the Top Box without being seen? That was simple enough: walk straight out, surreptitiously enough, but no one saw her, their attention focused not on the ground beneath their feet but on the skies, watching the Irish players, then seeing the game commence. It was terrible to have to miss this- but it was also the best choice to make.

She had the strangest, most ridiculous feeling as she headed down the purple-carpeted stairs, and at about the thirtieth down she turned- she had the strangest feeling that someone in the Top Box was watching her as she left. Of course it was absurd, everyone had their brass Omnioculars pressed to their eyes, angled upwards, but nevertheless….In the Top Box, momentarily, in the empty space beside Winky, she had seen a man's shoe. For only a moment.

"TROY SCORES!" Bagman roared, and from here there was no delay, only his voice broadcast throughout the magnificent golden stadium.

_You're seeing things_, Bellacine told herself sharply, and, turning, continued to egress.

* * *

"How was it?" Bellacine exclaimed at once, leaping up from the seat she'd taken in the girls' tent as Hermione and Ginny came in. "Wow, that was over really quickly! Who won?"

"Ireland won," Ginny answered, "they had a hundred seventy and Bulgaria had ten, but then Krum got the Snitch and ended it!"

"He _what_? He got the Snitch when his team was losing that badly- when a hundred fifty points wouldn't have let them win? What an idiot!"

"Well, yeah, but I think he wanted to end it on his own terms. Fred and George won their bet with Mr. Bagman, too, so it's all good. Come on, we're going over to their tent now; Dad said we didn't have to go to bed quite yet."

Hermione surreptitiously glanced at Bellacine with a questioning look. "Do you feel better now? It is awful that you were sick and you missed the World Cup- but I did get it all on the Omnioculars for you!"

"Thanks, I feel _much_ better now," she answered loudly for Ginny's benefit.

They headed over to the boys' tent, where the Weasleys and Harry sat gathered around a small table and a few mugs of hot cocoa. Their tent, like the one Hermione, Bellacine, and Ginny shared, was much bigger than it appeared from the outside; it was decorated in a style she thought rather revolting, with mouldy-looking crocheted doilies on the backs of all the mismatched chairs and the rose-colored couch and- she sniffed- an overwhelming smell of foreign cat. If she had to stay in this tent overnight she really _would_ be ill.

"Here, have some cocoa," said Mr. Weasley, taking a kettle from the stove. (With the Irish raucously celebrating only a field over, none of them cared much to cook outdoors.) Drinking their cocoa around the table, they discussed the World Cup; Mr. Weasley and Charlie getting into an avid debate of cobbing.

"Time for bed, I think," Mr. Weasley decided after Ginny fell asleep at the table and toppled off her stool. The girls returned to their tent, Hermione and Ginny going straight to bed, but Bellacine stayed up, watching Hermione's Omniocular recording of the game.

It wasn't a terribly long game, surprisingly enough- matches had lasted for over a month before- but it took her late into the night watching it. The Irish team was surprisingly good, and the Bulgarians, she thought, would have been better had one or two manoeuvers gone a little differently.

She assumed the Irish were still up celebrating because she could hear shouting, loud noises, and the occasional magical-sounding bang in the campsite. _I'm so glad we're not in the Irish field, I'd be afraid for my life…and I'm so glad I'm not in a tent that smells like cats, I don't think I'd be able to sleep….._She sniffed, smelling something else…..

Fire.

Bellacine froze, slowly setting the Omnioculars down on the table, and listened: the raucous singing, the sounds of celebration, had gone, leaving only screaming, loud, reckless laughter, drunken yells.

"Hermione! Ginny! _Get up_!" she shouted, hurriedly pulling on her shoes and grabbing her wand.

Hermione, sitting up in the top bunk, blearily mumbled, "What's going on?"

"I don't know, just get up! Something's happening outside, and it's bad- listen- there's screaming- there's something burning- make sure Ginny's up, get your wands, I'm going to get Mr. Weasley." She ran out of the girls' tent, not pausing to glance in the direction of the chaotic noise, and into the other.

Mr. Weasley was already out of bed, shouting at the boys to wake up and get out of bed. Seeing her, he immediately said, "Bella- boys- all of you, get outside, go into the woods, and _stick together_. We're off to help the Ministry." He, Bill, Charlie, and Percy were already dressed, with their sleeves rolled up and their wands out.

The girls, Harry, Ron, and the twins met outside the girls' tent and were at once swept along by the crowd of people all rushing for the woods.

Bellacine looked over her shoulder as she hurried along, wondering what was going on that was causing these frightened noises, that everyone was so panicked over. Above the heads of the terrified crowd she could barely make out another mob, this of a slowly marching, black-clad band of wizards marching across the campsite with their wands held straight up in front of them. They marched steadily, as if to the cadence of an invisible drum, without regard for the tents and fire scars in their path.

She looked up, in the direction the mob's wands were pointed. Hovering above them were people- people, hanging upside-down twenty feet in the air, with their clothing dangling every which way, grotesquely twisting and turning, as they tried in vain to free themselves from invisible bonds.

She had been dragged along by the crowd for so long, with no need for independent motion, she had hardly needed to walk, but now Bellacine faced forwards again, and she looked around for her friends.

They were all gone. Nowhere in the swarming sea of faces that swam past her could she see Hermione, or Harry, or Ron- the crowd, in its panicked state, had dragged them apart without her even realising it, like a strong current. Now her portion of the crowd reached the forest edge, began to spread out, dissimilating, but still nowhere was there a familiar face-

"Draco?"

"Fancy meeting you here," her cousin said, stepping out from a shadow-draped space between trees. "Where'd the Russians go? Desert you? I hardly blame them."

_He must still think I'm with Anya_, she thought. "What do you want?" Bellacine demanded angrily.

"Oh, be civil for once," Draco snapped. "If you must know, figure out what it looks like for yourself. I'm watching them- serves the Muggles right, doesn't it? If I were you I'd be thankful you're part Black and part Malfoy…and that they aren't aware of your Mudblood friend."

"Who-?" she began, nodding to the mob continuing across the campground, which was still visible from the dark forest edge. Then it occurred to her: "They're- Death Eaters?"

He nodded absentmindedly, watching. At last he spoke quietly: "Why do you do this?"

"Do what?"

"Why do you associate with that kind of worthless _scum_? Why do you get yourself into a blood-traitor House like Gryffindor? I don't know what the Hat said to you, but if it told you Gryffindor right away, which I doubt, you could have argued. What are you trying to do, get yourself killed some night when things are better for our kind and you've acted a complete fool and somebody decides- forget your family, you're a _Gryffindor_?"

"They wouldn't dare," she bluffed evenly. At least a bluff in the sense that she did not, technically speaking, know for sure. She hoped she wasn't bluffing.

"No, most of them wouldn't," Draco agreed. "But what's so bad about Slytherin?"

"When I was at Durmstrang, nothing was," Bellacine said. They could barely see the mob- the Death Eaters, real Death Eaters still alive and active after thirteen years- through the trees, but the air retained an aura of fear. She couldn't see them, but she knew they were there. "Then I came to Hogwarts, and the first time I saw you on that train after you went off with Crabbe and Goyle and Nott, you were behaving like I'd never seen you before, you were treating some of the first people I'd met in my life who didn't ask me my surname, when the one thing I wanted was for nobody to ask, and there you were- you were treating them like they were less than nothing. And I don't ever want to be like that: I am nothing like you."

"You're more like me than you think you are."

Bellacine heaved a sigh and began to walk away, pushing undergrowth from her path even as it left small scratches across the backs of her hands, deciding to find the Weasleys and get out of this forest, back to safety, as soon as possible. "Whatever. Tell me, then, how am I like you?"

"If your father hadn't gotten himself killed he'd be out there too," he said, "just like my father is."

It was perfectly true in the most literal sense- but the way he had said it, declared it as practically an open taunt, that Regulus had been an idiot, not known what he was doing, and it was his own fault he was dead- that he'd made some childish mistake- and it wasn't like that, it wasn't; Aurors were the best the Ministry had to offer and even with the added strength of the Dark Arts there wasn't an eighteen-year-old alive who could fight specially trained wizards at the top of their game. "Go to hell!" she screamed as she turned back, curling her hands into fists. She swung wildly- and missed, barely, but a miss nevertheless. The imprudence of acting sans thought, and she didn't much care.

Draco stood there, shocked, staring at her, like she was morphing into something he had never seen before.

"Go to hell!" she screamed again. "Fight back, why don't you? I don't care if I'm a girl; fight back for once in your life! Do something on your own instead of letting Crabbe and Goyle do it for you! You think you're so special- you think you're so sodding _wonderful _because your father's still alive...Well my father died fighting AND THAT'S WORTH MORE THAN ANYTHING YOUR FATHER EVER DID OR WILL DO FOR THE CAUSE!"

Draco shoved her away, hard, and stepped back, one hand clearly going for his wand. "If that's the way you feel about it," he said slowly, "I'll go home and tell them everything- how you're friends with blood traitors and filth like that, how you're glad to be in Gryffindor, that you wanted to be in Gryffindor-"

Dimly she processed this: all her hard work for nothing, then, if he would do such a thing, and now, though she knew she was bring completely irrational, she hardly cared. Both of the cousins stood completely still in the forest, eyeing each other with caution.

"Wait- listen- something's there," Bellacine whispered, sensing movement in the undergrowth behind her. "Somebody's in there," she repeated.

Draco frowned, seeming to admit defeat of a sort. "Probably some Mudblood trying to hide themselves- could be Granger, I saw them earlier, told them if they didn't want her caught they ought to stay out of sight." As he said this, looking over his shoulder, he walked off through the trees to his right, leaving her alone in the woods.

Bellacine uttered a small sigh and crossed the small clear space to the thicket where she had heard the rustling noises. In all likelihood, it was a small animal or even a breeze, but given the circumstances she had to be positive. She tried to pull some of the brush back, but it was thick and tangled and by now she doubted- might it have been her own imagination?

A thorn scratched her arm.

The air, thick with palpable terror still, was sliced or torn, as if by a blade, and a shout went up as she walked backwards from the thicket sending roosting birds into the night with a panicked cry.

"_MORSMORDRE_!"

A glowing emerald-green constellation fell into the sky, skull-shaped and outlined in tiny sparkling olive stars, with a serpent protruding from its yaw. Screams erupted around her- how strange that there could be so many people within twenty yards of each other, yet she had never known anyone but herself and Draco were there- and Bellacine too found herself shouting out in fright.

Through the tangled bramble thicket she heard several loud whip-like cracks of Apparition; she had recognised the constellation that hovered, smoke like, in the sky above and wondered now who these wizards Apparating could be, because given the situation it was hardly improbable that they were Death Eaters. The time for curiosity was past: Bellacine did not move towards the noises inquisitively. Then several Stunning Spells rocketed through dark gaps between trees, and she turned and ran.

The Death Eaters had been on the march. The Dark Mark, the old sign of a killing, hung like a flag of victory (or of the victim's surrender) over any place of a murder, suspended motionless over the dark forest. With good reason, she ran, afraid.

* * *

Bellacine found her way back to the Weasleys' tents, unharmed in the night's ruckus, slightly before daybreak. Sticking her head into the girls' tent, she found it empty. Upon checking the larger tent she entered; here, everyone was gathered around the small table as they had been the previous night. They were waiting for her, she could tell, from the relieved smiles on their faces after her entrance.

"Who set it off?" she inquired immediately.

Mr Weasley cleared his throat. "We, ah, don't know yet, although there were several 'suspects,' so to speak. Barty Crouch's house-elf- Winky- was found nearby with a wand in her hand and upon Priori Incantatem it seems that was the wand used. It turned out to be Harry's wand, actually, he'd just lost it, so we're no farther than before."

"And," said Hermione angrily, "Mr. Crouch sacked his house-elf all because it makes him look bad!"

"So?" asked Bellacine. "So what if he did? He's got a perfect right to, it's his elf, and it's what anyone would have done in his place- he can hardly have an elf incriminating him, can he?"

"Well, it's not fair! She was treating him like a slave-"

Mr. Weasley sighed. "She's a house-elf, Hermione, so for all intents and purposes she _is _a slave. That's the way it's done, and I'm sorry you feel so strongly about it, but there's really nothing we can do."

Hermione seethed, silent.

"Anyway," Bellacine continued, "did they catch anyone?"

"They all Disapparated," Mr. Weasley said grimly. "We think it happened as soon as they saw the Mark. We're not sure if whoever set it off was doing it to support the Death Eaters or scare them away."

"So..." She hesitated. Though it clearly disappointed the others, she personally was almost relieved nobody had been caught. Because if they had...what if it was Lucius Malfoy, or someone else...she didn't like to think. "With the Dark Mark...was anybody killed?"

"None dead," said Mr. Weasley with a relieved smile. "All the same, everyone is worried now. We're getting the first Portkey out this morning."

Everyone drifted to bed for the short while remaining before dawn, and tried to get what little sleep they could catch. Bellacine, though exhausted, found herself too nervous to do anything but stare at the gradually lightening canvas ceiling, and wonder.

The Death Eaters were out for the first time in thirteen years.

The Dark Mark graced the sky for the first time in thirteen years

She had, very succinctly, informed Draco that she wanted nothing to do with him or with the Malfoys, that he could tell them all he pleased about her activities and her friendships at Hogwarts the previous year, damn the consequences; she had just relinquished almost every connection she had that would have kept her safe and free from harm in the event of a second rise of the Dark Lord and, now, what did she have to keep herself safe in that event? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.

She hadn't expected this when she was in the woods with Draco. She hadn't expected this at all, she hadn't been planning for this. So it happened. Just her luck. For the first time in thirteen years...it happened today.

**

* * *

**

A/N: I always wondered about Barty Jr. wearing the Invisibility Cloak during the World Cup. Come on, really...the leprechaun gold would be bouncing off this random person-sized apparent hole in the air, and nobody notices?


	4. Chapter 4 Enter Madness

**A/N: And here we are again. Not much to say. Such is life. I figured out how to changethe computer dictionary so I can write in my English instead of the computer's English. It's made life much better.**

* * *

When Bellacine woke on the day Hogwarts resume session, it seemed the weather had planned to specifically match her mood: Heavy rain was bucketing down from a grey-black sky, and it didn't seem likely to let up, either.

She rolled her eyes, got up, dressed, and started throwing everything haphazardly into her trunk. By this method she was packed in only a few minutes; Ginny and Hermione had packed (more neatly) the night before and were downstairs already now. As she entered the kitchen Mr. Weasley was fastening a cloak around his neck.

"Molly, are you going to be all right taking the kids to King's Cross?" he asked hurriedly. Halfway through Mrs. Weasely's nod he was out the door and gone, Disapparated.

"Did someone say Mad-Eye?" Bill commented, entering the kitchen and accepting a plate from his mother. "What's he up to now?"

Mrs. Weasley, dishing up breakfast for everyone else, replied, "He says someone tried to break into his house last night."

"Mad-Eye Moody?" George mused aloud. "Isn't he that nutter-"

"Your father thinks very highly of Mad-Eye Moody," Mrs. Weasley reprimanded sternly. "He was a great wizard in his time."

Charlie swallowed his toast and asked, "He's an old friend of Dumbledore's, isn't he?"

"Dumbledore's not what you call _normal _though, is he?" Fred muttered. "I mean, I know he's a genius and everything..."

"Who _is_ Mad-Eye?" Harry asked, obviously quite confused. She would have hoped that, despite his upbringing, he would at least have learned a little common knowledge, maybe even what an Auror was, but apparently not.

"...a Dark wizard catcher," continued Charlie. "Half the cells in Azkaban are full because of him-"

Bellacine looked up from her plate sharply. "So all we care about now is filling the cells? More, more, more? It doesn't matter whether or not they're guilty, even, does it? All that matters is getting them all locked up for life. Nothing else is the concern, they just want the whole prison bursting at the seams-"

Hermione quickly said, "I need to find my Potions book quick before we leave, I think I left it out when I was reading through last night...Bella, come help me look for it?" She exited the kitchen and wordlessly, Bellacine followed her, trailed by Harry and Ron.

They paused in the living room, as Hermione looked around curiously. She looked behind them, through the hallway from which they had come, and she must have decided they were far away enough now. "Stopdrawing attention to everything, Bella! We know about Sirius, they don't. If you keep going on like this they're going to think- I don't know what, I don't want to know what, but they're going to start to wonder soon. We know about"- her voice decreased to a low whisper- "we know about your father."

"I drilled it into your head about twenty times last year, didn't I?" Bellacine snapped, on the defensive. "_Sirius_ is not my father. My father was a Death Eater. Aurors killed him. You saw me in the kitchen; you want to know why I don't like Moody? I'll tell you: Moody was the best of the best. Moody probably killed my father."

"You never told us that- that he's- you know, one of them," Ron stammered.

"Yes I-"

"No you didn't- you never said he was a Death Eater, just that he was a pureblood and really, well, adamant or something about it, never a thing about actually being in the Death Eaters!"

"Anyway," Hermione interjected before the conversation could get entirely out of hand. She frowned- probably because something that was meant to be a tête-à-tête that the two girls needed to have, in her eyes, had become something of a tête-à-tête-à-tête- à-tête. "The point is, we know and we don't care. If we cared about nonsense like that that doesn't matter anymore, you wouldn't be here. You don't need to go so defensive on it- think about it; if you do, you'll just get more people noticing you for the wrong reasons. But listen to us and believe me when I say: We don't care."

At last, Bellacine mumbled a stiff "Thank you." She relaxed visibly.

* * *

Mrs. Weasley had braved the horrors of the village of Ottery St. Catchpole to procure a small fleet of taxis to transport them to King's Cross. Bellacine, loading her trunk into the open boot of the second car, couldn't be sure, but the look on the drivers' faces, the pained smiles and casual, worried glances at one another betrayed their thoughts: _What on earth is wrong with these lunatics? Pet owls?_

They walked calmly through the 'wall' connecting the visible spectrum of the train station to Platform Nin-and-Three-Quarters, where the Hogwarts Express already waited, flaming red and belching smoke.

"I might be seeing you all sooner than you think," Charlie said as they were saying their good-byes.

"Why?" Fred and George chorused inquisitively.

"You'll see...just don't tell Percy I mentioned it, it's supposed to be 'classified information' until the Ministry decides to release it to the general public.

She chuckled softly to herself at the curious, perturbed expressions on her friends' faces. It certainly would be an interesting surprise for them...They wouldn't hold it against her that she had withheld the information from them, would they?

Mrs. Weasley gave everybody a perfunctory hug, and to her own brood a kiss, then chivvied the onto the bright red train. They found a compartment close to the back; the boys stuck their heads out the window at once, attempting one final time to draw the news out of Mrs. Weasley and Charlie. With a hiss and a clatter, the train began to chug out of the station.

"Bagman wanted to tell us what's happening at Hogwarts," Ron grumbled as they departed from that compartment and found a new one on their own, apart from Ginny and the twins. Pig hooted indignantly when the Hogwarts Express rounded a bend; the redhead tossed over the cage something old, and mouldy-looking, and a revolting shade of purple.

"What in the name of Merlin is that?" Bellacine gasped with pretend disdain. "Ron, I hope you're not intending to actually wear that- whatever _that _is."

"They're my dress robes," he snapped defensively. "What, don't you have some?"

"Yeah, but they're from this century, for one, and they're not a shade of violet that has no right to exist in free countries such as this, either-"

Hermione jumped up. "Shh," she ordered softly, and crossed to the compartment door, open a crack. Outside they heard- she strained- Draco, yes, discoursing loudly.

"...Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts too, you know. He knows the headmaster, you see. Well, you know his opinion of Dumbledore- the man's such a Mudblood-lover- and Durmstrang doesn't admit that kind of riffraff. But Mother didn't like the idea of me going to a school so far away. Father says Durmstrang takes a far more sensible line than Hogwarts about the Dark Arts. They actually learn them, not just the defence rubbish we do..."

Hermione tiptoed to the door and slid it gently closed. Angrily, she said, "I wish he had gone to Durmstrang, then we wouldn't have to put up with him!"

"You're right, it would have done him a world of good," she agreed. "_So_ much better than Hogwarts...Merlin, everything there is, I ought to ask Dumbledore to do some reforms..."

"That's right, you went there, didn't you?" said Harry. "All right, what's it like? Where is it?"

Bellacine gritted her teeth inwardly, knowing the predominant reason Harry asked was because (and judging from the keen looks on the others' faces, they as well) wanted to know just how much Dark magic she had learned.

"It's just...really different," she said. "And no, you are not getting an introductory course to Dark Arts, I don't give free demonstrations. And I thought I'd told you that it's in Russia."

"Russia is the largest country on earth," Hermione reminded her. "You don't have to tell us, if it's some sort of secret-type thing...I suppose they have their security just like Hogwarts does, charms t repel Muggles or to make it Unplottable."

Rain continued pouring down as the train wove through soggy, sodden countryside; several other classmates looked in on them as the journey progressed. Unfortunately one of their visitors was Neville Longbottom, who was on friendly terms with Hermione, Ron, and Harry, but rather the opposite with Bellacine. He detested her; she was satisfied enough to leave him alone, and his dislike brought about nothing but her own, of him.

Ron described for him the World Cup- Seamus Finnegan; the die-hard Ireland supporter still sporting his green rosette had just left- and watching the game from the Top Box.

"For the first and last time in your life, Weasley," sneered a cold voice. Draco stepped in through the compartment door, left ajar by their many visitors, and Crabbe and Goyle followed him into the car.

"Don't remember asking you to join us, Malfoy," Harry said threateningly. Draco disregarded him; his eyes travelled to the robe sleeve still covering Pigwidgeon's cage. "Weasley...what is _that_?" He smirked, and pointed.

Ron went to stuff them back into his trunk, but he snatched the rotting, lacy cuff and laughed. "Look at this! Weasley, you weren't thinking of wearing these, were you? I mean, they were very fashionable in about eighteen ninety..."

"Eat dung, Malfoy!" Ron shouted as he yanked the sleeve of his robes back.

"So...going to enter, Weasley?" he asked, still laughing. "Going to try and bring a bit of glory to the family name? There's money involved as well, you know...you'd be able to buy some decent dress robes if you won..."

"What are you talking about?" Ron demanded loudly. Bellacine knew full well what her cousin alluded to, and only hoped if he decided to spill that her own friends wouldn't be angry with her for not telling them right away.

"Don't tell me you don't _know_?" he said delightedly. "You've got a father and brother at the Ministry and you don't even _know_? My god, _my_ father told me about it ages ago...heard it from Cornelius Fudge. But then, Father's always associated with the top people at the Ministry...Maybe your father's too junior to know about it...yes...they probably don't talk about important stuff in front of him," he taunted.

Still laughing, Draco departed, trailed by Crabbe and Goyle. Ron stood and slammed the door shut after they left it wide open, and the glass pane fell out and smashed on the floor.

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed exasperatedly. "_Reparo_," she muttered, and the shards of glass assimilated and repaired themselves in the empty pane.

"Well…making it look like he knows everything and we don't!" Ron snarled, still scarlet. "'Father's always associated with the top people at the Ministry'….Dad could've got a promotion any time, he just likes where he is."

Frankly, she doubted this, but no matter.

"Do you know what he's going on about?" he continued, turning to her. "You do, don't you? C'mon, tell us!"

"All in good time," she said mysteriously, turning away from them to gaze out the window, at the rain-washed green fields that flew by, a smirk spreading across her face. "All in good time."

* * *

The thestrals-drawn carriages trundled up the drive, and luckily, none of them became stuck in the vast quantities of mud oozing across the grounds. Disembarking at the front steps of Hogwarts everyone rushed into the castle, their senses flooded with the scent of a warm, tasty dinner awaiting them, and began attempting spells to dry off.

"Blimey," Ron said, shaking off droplets of water, "if that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm soak- ARGH!"

A red water balloon fell from the vaulted ceiling and landed, exploding directly in front of Ron, who was now even more soaked than previously.

"PEEVES!" bellowed Professor McGonagall. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!"

"Not doing nothing!" the poltergeist cackled, hovering ten feet above them, "Already wet, aren't they? Little squirts! Wheeeeeeeeee!" He sped off, dropping more water balloons onto a group of fifth-year girls who covered their heads with their arms and dashed away.

"I shall call the headmaster!" McGonagall shouted, glaring up through her square-shaped spectacles. "I'm warning you, Peeves!"

Peeves, still cackling madly, flew off quickly, and the Head of Gryffindor ushered them into the Great Hall. The Hall was splendidly decorated for the feast, the golden flatware and dishes gleaming in the light of a thousand candles which hovered, midair, over the tables. The ceiling above was a stormy grey black colour.

Thankfully, it was also much drier and warmer.

The Gryffindors filed past the Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff tables before reaching their own. Harry found a seat beside the House ghost, Nearly Headless Nick (who preferred, to no avail, to be known by his proper name of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington) and she, Ron, and Hermione sat down in a row next to Harry.

A group of first-years, all positively soaked and dripping water onto the marble floor, filed across the Great Hall, creating a puddle that spread slowly, the fruit of their journey across the Black Lake. Bellacine checked the end of their line for any new students starting after first year, as she had done. She had been Sorted after the first-years were given their own Houses.

They all looked incredibly short, and incredibly nervous- especially a boy at least a head shorter than his counterparts near the front of the line, who, despite the grossly overlarge coat dangling off his shoulders was literally jumping up and down with excitement.

Hermione whispered, "Where's the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?"

Bellacine quickly scanned the high table- she recognised all the teachers, from Professor Sprout with her flyaway hair to Snape coldly surveying the Hall- and noticed that, yes, there were two empty seats. One could be explained, as Professor McGonagall came forwards and placed a stool before the first years. And atop the stool sat a raggedy, rather special hat.

The previous year she had found the Sorting ceremony to be something of an inexplicable mystery- Durmstrang had no Houses- but by now, she was well enough accustomed to it to sit silently as the Hat sang its song, describing (as always) the four founders of Hogwarts and the general characteristics of each House. (She wondered if anybody else had ever realised that the sole purpose of Hufflepuff House was to, apparently, hold those not brave, intelligent, or ambitious enough to get into another).

As "Creevey, Dennis!" was Sorted into Gryffindor, Hagrid sidled out of a door behind the teachers' table and took his seat, a larger chair at one end that had gone unnoticed previously. Hagrid, like his chair, was twice the size of a normal man (or chair), with wild, bushy black hair and a ruddy face. However, despite his somewhat dangerous appearance, he was quite nice and actually somewhat soft- in the way of his precious monsters, of course.

"Quirke, Orla!" became a Ravenclaw as Ron's stomach growled loudly.

"Whitby, Kevin!" was placed into Hufflepuff and his stomach roared again; he eyed the empty plates spread down the four House tables, each awaiting a heaping mound of food.

Dumbledore rose and spread his arms wide in a gesture of welcome. "I have only two words to say to you," he announced. "Tuck in."

"Aaah, 'at's be'er," Ron spluttered with his mouth stuffed full. Hermione gave him a disgusted look.

"You're lucky there was a feast at all tonight, you know," added Nick, while gazing longingly at the ham.

"Why, wha'appened?" rejoined Harry, his mouth only slightly less full than Ron's.

"Peeves, of course," Nick sighed sadly. "The usual argument, you know. He wants to attend the feast- well, it's quite out of the question, you know what he's like, and can't see a plate of food without throwing it, utterly uncivilized. We held a ghost council- the Fat Friar was all for giving him the chance- but, most wisely in my opinion, the Bloody Baron put his foot down." He nodded sagely at the quicksilver-blood-covered ghost at the Slytherin table.

"Yeah, we thought Peeves seemed off about something," Ron complained. Indeed, the front of his school robes was still damp. "So what did he do in the kitchens?"

"Oh, the usual," the ghost shrugged. "Wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house-elves out of their wits-"

With a loud clang, Hermione dropped her goblet, spilling pumpkin juice across the tablecloth. "There are house-elves _here_?" she exclaimed incredulously. "Here at HogwartsHogwartHo

Hogwarts?"

"Certainly," he replied. "The largest number in any dwelling in Britain, I believe. Over a hundred."

"I've never seen one!"

"Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchens by day, do they?" he stated. Personally, Bellacine couldn't see what Hermione's problem was with the idea of house-elves. "They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning...see to the fires and so on. I mean, you're not supposed to see them, are you? That's; the mark of a good house-elf, isn't it, that you don't know it's there?"

Hermione gaped momentarily. "But they get _paid_, don't they? They get holidays, don't they? And sick leave, and pensions, and everything!"

Nearly Headless Nick laughed so hard his semi-detached head flopped off his head. It dangled beside his neck until he replaced it, straightening his ruff imperiously. "Sick leave and pensions? House-elves don't want sick leave and pensions!"

Hermione laid down her flatware and pushed away her plate.

"Oh, c'mon, 'Er-my-knee-" Ron said through great quantities of Yorkshire pudding. "Oops- sorry, 'Arry. You won't get them sick leave by starving yourself!"

"Slave labour," she returned stalwartly, breathing hard. "That's what made this dinner. _Slave labour_."

Ron wafted the scents of several large, appetizing puddings towards her. "Treacle tart, Hermione!" Spotted dick, look! Chocolate gateau!"

She gave the gateau a disdainful look and turned to Bellacine. "So," she said calmly, "who do you think the next Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher will be?"

"I wouldn't know. Why, do you?"

"No...hazard a guess, I'm bored."

"Okay then...Rukovskaya. Wouldn't that be a nice surprise? Oh- wait- that's my old Charms teacher. Lunatic if you ever met one." She stopped talking as Dumbledore stood.

"Now that we are all fed and watered," the headmaster said, the Hall quieting immediately at his voice, except- shockingly- for Hermione, who made a snorting sceptical noise, "there are a few important notices I must give.

"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle this year has been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch's office, if anyone would care to check it.

"As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year.

"It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."

"_What_?" gasped about half the people in the Hall. Harry stared slack-jawed at Dumbledore, utterly appalled.

"This is due to an event that will be starting in October," he went on, acting oblivious to the muttered comments of the students, "and will be continuing throughout the year- taking up much of the teachers' time and energy- but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts-"

It was a dark and stormy night.

Suddenly, a loud, resonating bolt of thunder boomed out, echoing across the grounds.

A first-year Hufflepuff girl with plaited pigtails screamed; the door slammed open. Silhouetted in the ensuing flash of lightening was a tall, cloaked figure leaning crookedly on a staff. Shaking back long grey hair he strode past the Slytherin table, a wooden clunk issuing every other step.

A second lightening-crack illuminated his face as he passed the Ravenclaw table. It seemed to be carved of wood, with features etched by a terrible artist. His mouth was a gash difficult to distinguish from the many scars stretched across his face. A good-sized portion of his nose was missing. His eyes were frightening: one was small and beady, like a bird, almost black. The other was the size of a Galleon, electric blue, and unblinking. It swivelled around in the socket, independent of its partner, and the rolled into the back of the man's head, exposing a rounded white surface.

He reached the high table; Dumbledore stepped down to greet him. They conferred momentarily. Then the man took a seat in the empty chair beside the headmaster's own. Pulling a plate of sausages towards him, he chose one carefully, sniffed it, stabbed it with a small knifed, and ate.

"May I introduce our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?" Dumbledore offered brightly. "Professor Moody." His introduction was met by stunned silence.

So this was their new teacher...Mad-Eye Moody, the famously paranoid ex-Auror...this could almost be worse than Lupin...The rest of the school appeared just as shocked and horrified as she felt; no one but for Hagrid and Dumbledore himself clapped.

"As I was saying," he continued, smiling broadly at the students before him, "we are to have the honour of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year."

"You're JOKING!" said Fred loudly.

Nearly everybody chuckled at this; the tension that had settled over them like fog ever since Moody's arrival dissipated in a maelstrom of rapid murmuring. "I assure you I am _not_ joking, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said jovially, "though now that you mention it, I did hear and excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar...Er- but maybe this is not the time-no...Where was I? Ah, yes, the Triwizard Tournament...well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who _do _know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their minds to wander freely."

Bellacine, belonging to the aforementioned group, followed his instructions and allowed her attention to drift from the white-bearded, purple-robed man on the dais before her. Perhaps she could enter, despite the announcement he was now presently making- "until the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued" – and yet...

"Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," he said, "the Heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age- that is to say, seventeen years of age or older- will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration."

There were several loud roars of outrage at this, and the Weasley twins were shouting something that could not be heard over the surrounding scrum. _There goes that idea_, she thought sullenly. At least she had a good wager on some of the attendees from Durmstrang- Krum, most definitely, Karkaroff wouldn't dream of leaving him behind...Of course she hardly knew any others in years old enough to attend, certainly nobody from her year- but Anton would be old enough; Anton, with a birthday midway through January had been seventeen for over half a year now. The feast concluded soon afterwards, and she, Hermione, Ron, and Harry returned to Gryffindor Tower for the first time that year. A new term had begun.

* * *

Classes started the next day. The entire morning was spent out-of-doors (the thunderstorm had blown through in the night, though not before keeping half the school up while the torches flickered ominously), first in the Herbology greenhouses collecting bubotuber pus and next in Care of Magical Creatures, where they had the great misfortune of being introduced to Hagrid's new best mates- Blast-Ended Skrewts, strange animals that resembled lobsters crossbred with worms, shell less, pale white, and very slimy. Of course, there had to be some firecrab or manticore genes in there too, because the Skrewts had both stingers and the tendency to occasionally have their rear ends explode, scorching whomever was close enough to be attempting to feed them at the time, Hagrid's utterly pointless goal for the lesson.

At lunch Hermione at so fast that she had no time at all to talk and her plate was wiped clean in seconds.

"Er- is this the new stand on elf rights?" asked Ron. "You're going to make yourself puke instead?"

"No," she retorted between rapid bites, "I just want to get to the library."

"But-" said Bellacine, "we don't have homework yet, what do you need to go there for? Do you actually think you need to be, what, studying for exams already?"

Hermione waved her off, continued shovelling food in her mouth, and departed at top speed two minutes later with a brief "See you at dinner!"

Next was Divination. Not only was this a miserable enough class on its own, because Professor Trelawney was _positive_ everyone was about to die that evening in the most tragic way possible, taught in a stuffy room decorated in the worst taste, and was an utter fraud, but Hermione had walked out the year before in a fit of lucidity. Bellacine could hardly blame her, but she had been her partner whenever the class needed to team up for crystal ball readings or palmistry.

Because the class had already been fragmented into pairs- Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, Harry and Ron- Bellacine, when Hermione walked out, was left with the only other person available: Neville Longbottom.

He absolutely loathed her, simply put, because she was Bellacine Black and he was Neville Longbottom. His parents, Aurors, had been tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange and a couple of other Death Eater cohorts. The trouble was, Bellatrix Lestrange was not only Bellacine's cousin but her godmother as well, and somewhere between that, the similarity in their names, and their looks, Neville hated her. The strange case of Sirius Black didn't help much either; nobody questioned Neville's attitude and this was probably why- the information about his parents was common enough knowledge for her to know, but it was hardly spread across the school.

Trelawney greeted them in her usual misty way and took a seat by the fire. "My dears, it is time for us to consider the stars- the movements of the planets and the mysterious portents they reveal only to those who understand the steps of the celestial dance."

"Planets and stars are different things, Professor," Bellacine commented under her breath, and both Harry and Ron, at the table next to her, snorted.

"Human destiny may be deciphered by the planetary rays, which intermingle with other celestial bodies in a..."

She closed her eyes and leaned back, taking advantage of the collection of cushy armchairs that replaced the usual desk-and-chair arrangements in most classrooms. Hadn't Harry written to Sirius over the summer, just before he came to the Burrow? Then why wasn't Sirius writing back? Harry in all likelihood had been an idiot and said something he shouldn't have, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and Sirius would be the one to pay the price...She hadn't even had any contact with him, not a word since the letter the last day of third year, and before that the very first time she saw him in person was the night he proved his innocence...

"Miss Black," snapped Professor Trelawney, suddenly sounding much less like her usual self and much more like Professor McGonagall. "We're waiting."

Bellacine opened her eyes. The entire room was staring at her expectantly. "Neptune," she said, thinking quickly. "Ophiucus. I'm going to die a slow, painful, and utterly tragic death."

Professor Trelawney, seemingly, couldn't tell if it was an honest teacher or if she was being subtly mocked. Apparently her Inner Eye could not or would not tell the difference for her.

Half an hour later she and Neville were staring blankly at two circular spreads of parchment, their new star charts, which they had to fill in with the position of just about every heavenly body at the time of their birth.

Neville had no skill in wielding a compass and within ten minutes he had created nothing but for a muddle of wonky lines of an ambiguous direction and disturbed constellations spreading across his paper. She checked his birthday, filled in at the top of his chart- only a few days before her, yet his chart looked nothing like hers.

Bellacine said quietly, "Neville, you want a forty-five degree angle off Apus to get Corona Borealis."

Neville paid her no mind, naturally, and consulted the timetable in the back of his Divination textbook. He then proceeded to mark exactly the wrong spot on his star chart.

"Neville-" she began again.

"Don't talk to me."

"Oh for Merlin's sake, you don't know what you're doing and you're screwing this up immensely. At least let me do something-"

"I said, don't talk to me," he hissed. "I don't want your help. I don't want anything to do with you. So don't talk to me, all right?"

"Neville," she whispered, as Trelawney was now eyeing them through her oversized green spectacles, "it's not my fault."

**

* * *

**

A/N: Hello? Hello? Anyone out there...? Anyone out there who wants to press the nice button down in the corner that says submit review: go? Thank you. Have a nice day.


	5. Chapter 5 Ferrets and Spiders

**A/N: Happy Halloween.**

* * *

"Miserable old bat," Ron grumbled as they descended (or, rather, escaped) from the Divination classroom, with far too much homework. "That'll take all weekend, that will."

"Lots of homework?" said Hermione, catching up with them. "Professor Vector didn't give _us _any at all!"

"Well, bully for Professor Vector," Ron muttered crossly. They reached the entrance hall and were fighting their way in for dinner, when a voice rang out off the stone walls and arched ceiling.

"Weasley! Hey Weasley!"

They turned, saw Draco standing at the head of a pack of Slytherins, mostly his year and younger, halfway across the hall. He held a copy of the _Daily Prophet _wide open, smirking.

"What?" Ron snapped.

"Your dad's in the paper, Weasley!" He creased the paper down the middle section, folded it in half again, and shook it out briskly. "Listen to this!"

He began to read very loudly, drowning out every small casual conversation nearby, pausing contemptuously where the article (courtesy Rita Skeeter) referred to Mr. Weasley as Arnold instead of Arthur. "Imagine them not getting his name right," he crowed triumphantly. "It's almost as though he's a complete nonentity, isn't it?

"And there's a picture, Weasley!" He flipped the newspaper over once the article was finished. "A picture of your parents outside their house- if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn't she?"

"Get stuffed, Malfoy!" Harry snarled; Ron was shaking furiously, his face already adapting a scarlet tone. "C'mon, Ron...."

"Oh yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren't you?" Draco sneered. "So tell me, is his mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?"

"You know _your _mother, Malfoy?" he spat back. "That expression she's got, like she's got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?"

She and Hermione had been standing behind Ron, Hermione with a warning had holding the back of Ron's school robes to keep him from lunging at Draco, but at that point Bellacine let go. "Harry, just stop talking...," she murmured, stepping away from Ron.

"Don't you dare insult my mother, Potter," Draco snarled.

"Keep your fat mouth shut, then."

As Harry turned from him, making towards the Great Hall, Draco pulled out his wand; without a second's delay there was a loud _bang_ and a flash of blue-white light. Harry flinched to one side- the hex just missed him- and was going for his own wand when a second, louder noise echoed through the hall.

"OH NO YOU DON'T, LADDIE!"

Bellacine felt her jaw drop in shock- because right where her cousin had been standing an instant ago was a white ferret, and hobbling down the marble staircase with his wand out was Professor Moody.

He marched directly to Harry and began to confer with him. She couldn't hear a word they said, even though the entrance hall was dead silent as everybody stared at the ferret. Crabbe began to sneak across the hall, making surprisingly little noise for his bulk, and bent over the shivering ferret.

"LEAVE IT!" Moody roared; he swivelled quickly on his good leg and limped furiously towards Crabbe, Goyle, and the ferret. It squeaked in fright and dashed towards the dungeons- but Moody pointed his wand, bellowing, "I don't think so!"

He jerked his wand upwards, the ferret quickly levitated ten feet, fell just as quickly, and bounced up again.

Bellacine gasped- sure, it was a funny sight, hilarious, even (half the entrance hall was repressing hysterical laughter), but mostly...it was frightening. Because she thought she knew something more than Hermione (who, standing beside her, was fighting to keep her expression disapproving while cracking a grin) or Ron (now, finally, relaxed and guffawing loudly) didn't, couldn't know, something they could never fully understand: Moody was an Auror. A Dark wizard fighter by job description, a Dark wizard _hater _most likely. Her father had been a Death Eater; Draco's father had been a Death Eater, and probably wouldn't hesitate to return to the old way. Moody wasn't bouncing a ferret on hard stone flags as a punishment for trying to jinx Harry. He was punishing him because he didn't like his family.

Admittedly, it was funny. But it was also scary.

"I don't like people who attack when their opponent's back's turned," Moody growled. "Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do...." _Bounce_. And so was hypocrisy, coming from the man who had gotten Draco from behind as he descended the stairs while Draco's back was turned. "Never"-_bounce_-"do"-_bounce_-"that"-_bounce_-"again-"

"Professor Moody!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed in a shocked tone of voice.

"Hello, Professor McGonagall," he replied calmly; the ferret hovered within three feet of the ceiling.

"What- what are you doing?"

"Teaching," he said disinterestedly.

"Teach- Moody, _is that a student_?" McGonagall demanded, her eyes flashing behind rectangular spectacles.

"Yep."

"No!" She rushed down the staircase, pulling out her wand as she went, and with a loud gunshot-like _crack _restoring Draco to his usual state. "Moody, we _never_ use transfiguration as a punishment! Surely Dumbledore told you that-"

Moody shrugged unconcernedly. "He might've mentioned it, yeah, but I thought a good sharp shock-"

"We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender's Head of House!"

"I'll do that, then," he rejoined, staring at Draco who muttered something about "my father" under his breath. "Oh yeah?" Moody said, limping forwards. "Well, I know your father of old, boy....You tell him Moody's been keeping a close eye on his son...you tell him that from me....Now, your Head of House'll be Snape, won't it?"

Draco nodded mutely, looking as if an immediate escape was the only thing on his mind.

"Another old friend," Moody said in his harsh, grating voice. "I've been looking forward to a chat with old Snape....Come on, you," he growled, grasping Draco's upper arm and hauling him off in the direction of the dungeons.

"_Sadist_," hissed Bellacine as the entrance hall emptied around her. But too many people were letting out unabashed gales of laughter, or recounting the tale, or simply stampeding into the Great Hall for super, and nobody heard her.

* * *

The fourth years were so excited for Professor Moody's first lesson that Thursday that they queued up outside the door ten minutes before lunch finished. The only Gryffindor not present was Hermione, and she dashed up a second after the bell. The line flooded into the empty classroom; Harry led the four of them to seats directly before Moody's desk.

As she'd had a few days top acclimatise to Moody's teaching idiosyncrasies, Bellacine was not nearly as worried about the ex-Auror professor, merely apprehensive. She was relieved to know for sure that this man had no 'problems' like Lupin- his past career as an Auror was a good enough reference for that- so she didn't have an entire class to worry about, just herself (and let the Slytherins take care of themselves, too).

They pulled out their copies of _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_ and set the books upon desks, glancing around the room and into the hallway expectantly. Soon enough their absent teacher could be heard stumping down the corridor, distinctly audible by the thumping sound his wooden leg made.

"You can put those away," he growled upon entrance, seeing their desks, "those books. You won't need them."

Next he called roll; as Hannah Abbott the Hufflepuff girl was not in this class, Bellacine's name was the first called, but thankfully he did not comment. As he read each name his magical eye rolled to locate each person.

"Right, then," he said after Ron declared him present. "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in covering Dark creatures- you've covered boggarts, Red Caps, hinkypunks, grindylows, Kappas, and werewolves, is that right?"

A noise of consent followed.

"But you're behind- very behind, I'd say- on dealing with curses," Moody declared. "So I'm here to bring those of you who don't know up to scratch on what we wizards can do to each other. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark-"

"What, aren't you staying?" Ron blurted.

Moody fixed his eye upon Ron, then smiled. It made him appear much more sinisterly disfigured, but also much more human. "You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" he asked. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago....Yeah, I'm staying just one the one year. Special favour to Dumbledore....One year, and then back to my quiet retirement." He laughed, a harsh laugh.

"So- straight in to it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm not supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite and to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, while I'm talking."

Lavender, who had been displaying her completed star for Parvati under the desk, jumped. It appeared the strange blue eye could see through solid substances such as wood as well as the back of Professor Moody's own head.

"So...anyone know which curses are most heavily [punished by Wizarding law?"

Bellacine shifted uncomfortably, wishing Harry hadn't chosen for them front-row seats, unsure of whether to raise her hand and draw attention to herself or remain inconspicuous. Thankfully his gaze travelled to Ron for the first answer instead.

"Er," Ron said hesitantly, "my dad told me about one....Is it called the Imperius Curse or something?"

"Ah yes," said Moody appreciatively, "your father _would _know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse." He got to his feet and took, from the top left drawer of his desk, a clear glass jar which contained three spiders. On the far end of the front row- seated Bellacine, Hermione, Harry, Ron, from the door to the far wall- she saw Ron scooting his chair backwards. Moody scooped out a spider, and, holding it flat in his palm, muttered, "_Imperio_!"

Immediately it dived off Moody's hand, beginning to swing back and forth on a thin strand of silk. It did several back flips and somersaults; when the professor lowered it onto the desk it began to tap dance vigorously.

It was the 'amazing bouncing ferret' moment all over again- she knew enough not to laugh, and she wasn't, but she could hardly help cracking a grin.

"Think it's funny, do you?" growled Moody at the laughing class. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?" The class abruptly stopped laughing. "Total control," he breathed. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats....

"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse. Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.

"The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked. Everyone jumped, startled.

"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"

Again she kept her hand firmly by her side, although this time Moody's magical eye lingered on her. Instead he chose Neville- Neville, who almost never raised his hand except n Herbology.

"There's one- the Cruciatus Curse," he said timidly; Bellacine's stomach seemed to be falling. What she'd said before- it wasn't her fault- so don't look at her, don't call on her...don't blame her....

"Your name's Longbottom?" Moody asked sharply, scanning the register again. Neville nodded faintly, but the ex-Auror had already turned away, withdrawing another spider from the glass jar on his desk.

"The Cruciatus Curse....Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea. _Engorgio_!" he whispered; the spider enlarged several inches in diameter. "_Crucio_!"

The spider seemed to collapse inward on itself, its legs curling in; it rocked from side to side; no sound issued from it, and she didn't know if spiders even had mouths, but if it did- somehow there was an impossible hearing of silent screams in the Harlan Ellison atmosphere of the small room.

"Stop it!" Hermione shrilled.

As Moody lifted his wand and relieved the spider, Bellacine tore her gaze away to look at Hermione beside her. Frankly, she was shocked that Moody had even stopped; if somebody was torturing you they weren't going to give up even if you asked nicely, an idea which co-operated completely with his philosophy; at Durmstrang they had been trained properly- _keep silent_.

Hermione wasn't watching the arthropod, staring at it twitch like every other person in the class. She watched Neville, who gripped the rim of his desk so hard his knuckles were turning white as they looked at him.

"Pain," Professor Moody whispered. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can use the Cruciatus Curse....That one was very popular once too.

"Right...anyone know any others?"

This time, though his magical eye was trawling through the classroom, Moody's small, beady, normal eye fixed directly on her. It seemed he expected her to answer- he had to know who she was, another teacher must have told him- he clearly intended to ignore Hermione's eager raised hand. She herself submitted and raised her own hand rather than have an answer demanded of her.

"Yes," said Moody immediately. "Go on...."

Hesitating momentarily before she spoke, she decided it was better to say this loud and clear for everyone and get it over with. "The Killing Curse," Bellacine answered. "Avada Kedavra."

Several people in the class withdrew their gazes from Professor Moody to stare enquiringly at her. Moody nodded sharply, removing the last spider from the clear container. He set it on his desk; the arachnid frantically tried to scuttle away. Moody raised his wand high, brought it down abruptly, and roared, "_Avada Kedavra_!"

There was the usual flash of emerald green light and the usual rushing roar of the wind moving over the water, and the spider immediately fell to one side, a bundle of thin burnt twigs and shadows, unmoving. It was quite dead- moody had done an exceptionally good job of demonstrating these curses for an Auror, for someone who Bellacine had expected would spend his time avoiding magic like this, not learning and practicing and demonstrating it.

_Maybe...he could have...he could have killed my parents_, she thought unwillingly, but with a degree of suspicion so great that as she observed him scoop up the dead spider and drop it without ceremony into the rubbish bin, that it just could be true. If he was good enough at these curses to actually kill something, then....And for Aurors they accepted only the best wizards, which he clearly was, and he had been at his peak during the years right around her birth and the birth of her classmates, the Dark Lord's greatest year, right before his fall....

"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it- you could all get out your wands now and point them at me and say the words and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. That's if you're untrained, which most of you are and all of you should be. But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it.

"Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? _Because you've got to know_. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it, unprepared and unwittingly, for the very first time. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked again. And Bellacine regarded him carefully as he hobbled around the classroom, wondering how he learned the Unforgivable Curses, wondering if he had ever killed a human being.

"Now...those three curses- Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus- are known as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban."

People had. People would.

The coup de grace: _fellow human being_.

* * *

They had spent the rest of the class copying notes on the Unforgivable Curses. When it was over, the hubbub as the room emptied of students combined with the usual level of conversation in the corridors was deafening. Everyone was avidly discussing Moody's teaching style- and the curses, especially the last one.

"Not the ruddy library again?" Ron groaned as Hermione tersely ordered them to hurry.

"No," she replied, heading up a side corridor that was almost deserted. "Neville."

Standing halfway up the passageway, gaping blankly at a wall, was Neville. Every inch of his skin was as white as his knuckles had been in Defence Against the Dark Arts, except for his dilated eyes; horrified.

"Neville?" Hermione asked kindly.

"Oh, hello," he said in an unusually high-pitched voice, turning around. "Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm- I'm starving, aren't you?"

"Neville, are you all right?"

"Oh yes, I'm fine," he said hurriedly, tripping over his tongue as he spoke. "Very interesting dinner- I mean lesson- what's for eating?"

Bellacine, without thinking, said, "Are you-"

He seemed too dazed and out of it to retort angrily, but by the morphing expression on his face she knew she had been recognised, and unfavourably at that. She prayed for deliverance. Then Bellacine heard the now-familiar sound of Professor Moody's wooden stump bumping over the castle floors.

"It's all right, sonny," he said to Neville; his growling voice was at once rougher and gentler than it had ever been. "Why don't you come up to my office? Come on...we can have a cup of tea...." Turning to Harry, he growled, "You all right, Potter?" Harry agreed in an almost defiant tone, as if daring Moody to confront him. "You've got to know," he continued. "It seems harsh, maybe, but _you've got to know_. No point pretending...well...come on, Longbottom, I've got some books that might interest you." He placed a scarred, gnarled hand on Neville's shoulder and began to steer him away. "On second thought...Black, you come too."

Unaccustomed to being addressed by her surname it was several seconds before Bellacine processed this; she shrugged doubtfully at Hermione and trotted after obediently.

It was not until they reached the door to Moody's office that he spoke, to Neville. "Professor Sprout tells me you're very talented at Herbology," he said, fitting a brass key into the lock.

"Er- yes...," said Neville, sounding embarrassed but pleasantly surprised.

Moody nodded gruffly; ushering the boy into his office, he glanced over his shoulder. "Wait outside," he told her shortly. He followed Neville into his office and snapped the door shut behind.

Bellacine shrugged again, to herself, and leant against a convenient bit of wall, something not terribly difficult to find in a castle. What did Moody want with her? There was something, she guessed, that he wanted to ask her, something that couldn't be asked in class....Her parents? Durmstrang? Sirius?

Fifteen or so minutes later the door creaked open and out stepped Neville, a broad smile on his face. He carried a book under one arm; she looked to the side as he passed her and thus, without a disparaging remark, went into Professor Moody's office.

The office seemed to match the personality of their Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher to a T; it was filled, the shelves and desk overflowing, with all manner of Dark detectors, including a Sneakoscope, Secrecy Sensor, and a mirror-like contraption hung on the east wall that she did not recognise.

"What is that, Professor?"

"That's my Foe-Glass- see the dark shapes moving out there?" he said. "Foes. Not in trouble till I see the whites of their eyes- that's when they're close enough, too close, and that's when I open my trunk." He chuckled drily and gestured to a chest of dark wood beside his desk.

Bellacine nodded; indeed she could see several dark, blurry shapes moving about in the mirror. "Professor...why am I here? I was fine in class with those curses; I've seen the Unforgivables before, I know them...I wasn't scared or anything, I'm not scared, I-"

"Quiet," Moody ordered; she complied. "I wanted to ask you a few questions....then I saw Longbottom...you know what was going on there?"

She nodded again as he continued without pausing.

"And they treat you decently, your classmates?"

This time she was given an opportunity to make a full response. "Yeah, most of them, Professor," she said. "There are a few who really don't like me, they don't think I belong here- here or in Gryffindor, I'm really not sure which- but none of them are actually badly mean to me, no one was really horrible last year, either- with Sirius Black-"

Moody's face contorted in dislike. "Yes...the Dark Lord's 'heir apparent.'" He drew out the last words slowly. Then he took a swig from his hip flask. "You learned those curses at Durmstrang, am I right? How'd they teach 'em?"

"They started at the end of first year, just showing us how they worked, giving us background, mostly a demonstration or two right before the holidays. I think they just wanted to make an impression. The next year we spent studying them in class and by third year they were putting Imperio on us. If I'd stayed last year I would've been trying what you did today, with the spiders. I don't know what happens after that."

Moody nodded slowly; his magical eye traversed the office, rolling into the back of his head as he spoke. "Who taught you Dark Arts?"

"The headmaster- Professor Karkaroff, Professor."

Suddenly his face contorted in an ugly scowl and both eyes fixed on her. "Karkaroff," he hissed venomously.

"What is it, sir?" she asked curiously.

Remembering, seemingly, that she was there in front of him, Moody smiled. The effect was to make his vicious cowl appear far more sinister. "I was an Auror," he said grimly, "and if there's one thing I hate, it's the Death Eaters who walked free...the scum who never suffered Azkaban...."

Bellacine shifted nervously; was this his intent in calling her to his office, to mock her? To goad her into saying something that he could ultimately use against her- that he could use against Lucius, perhaps, because he had never been sentenced? If he was, he wasn't going to get anything out of her, she resolved.

"I don't like Death Eaters who went free after all they did," growled Moody. "I don't like 'em. Damn _scum_." He shook his grizzled grey hair out of his face. "But that doesn't mean anything about you, do you understand me? I don't give a damn who you are or who your family is, anything like that. I'm here to teach, not to be biased. You students, most of you are pretty smart, actually. You need somebody who can teach you _what you need to know_- not some idiot."

"Anything else, sir?" she said quietly.

His magical eye was again wandering the room. When it was staring out the side of his head at the Foe-Glass in which misty, undefined shapes moved, he suddenly snapped in his low, rough voice, "Who's your father, girl?"

"My-?"

"Your father, girl, who is he?" Moody growled. "Which of the Blacks?"

"Er- Regulus Black... why do you ask?" Bellacine said, completely bemused as to what this had to do with anything at all.

"No reason," he said, shaking his head from side to side. "Just asking. Now get out of my office."

This dismissal was so abrupt and so strangely, without warning, harshly given, that she did not know what to do at first, or whether or not he was serious. But he limped over to his Secrecy Sensor and began to fiddle with the dials, making it clear that the conversation was over.

Bellacine went to the Great Hall for dinner then- Hermione once again ate speedily and quickly departed, running out at top speeds almost as soon as she arrived- then she, Harry, and Ron returned to the Gryffindor common room to slog through their mountain of Divination with the help of a handy expedient known as an over-active imagination on Ron's part of ways to die dramatically, and none of them caring at all about logic or reason. In classes like Divination logic and reason were perpetually quite absent. Hermione returned some time later, clutching a long sheet of parchment and a rattling tin box.

"We've been working like house-elves here!" Ron moaned when she pointed out it was rather obvious that their predictions, which included a fine range of deaths by hippogriff, defenestration, lasagne, and cuckoo clocks, were invented.

"It's just an expression," he added hastily, when she bestowed upon him the classic frown of disapproval. "What's in the box?"

"Funny you should ask," she sighed, and popped off the lid. Inside were several multicoloured badges all bearing the legend S.P.E.W. "Not 'spew', S.P.E.W.," she corrected when Harry inquired as to the well-being of her sanity. "Stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare- I was going to put Stop the Outrageous Abuse of our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in their Legal Status, but that wouldn't fit. So this is the heading of our manifest- two Galleons a badge. You're my first members."

Bellacine sighed abjectly. "I refuse to pay good money to join any organisation that somehow involves the word 'manifesto' especially if it only exists to free a party that _doesn't want to be freed_!"

"They do!" Hermione exclaimed. "I've been researching it thoroughly in the library. Elf enslavement goes back centuries. I can't believe no one's done anything about it before now. Right, so our short-term aims are to secure for house-elves fair wages and working conditions. Our long-term aims include changing the law on non-wand use, and trying to get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, because they're shockingly underrepresented."

"And how do we do all this?"

"We start by recruiting members," she stated, and went on to explain all the logistics of this, and to appoint Harry secretary, Ron treasurer, and Bellacine head or public relations.

Bellacine and Ron now shared a look of bemused astonishment; she began to wonder if anyone had ever properly explained the Wizarding world to Hermione- most likely never, by the look of things. Because she knew, house-elves like their lives. They liked it. It was the entire purpose of a house-elf, to work for its master without pay.

Harry was clearly fighting down a chuckle, when he glanced over to the window. He immediately bolted up; her gaze followed his own. At the window, shining in moonlight there was a snowy owl- Harry's own, Hedwig.

"She's got an answer!" shouted Ron delightedly after Hedwig flew in and perched on their Divination work. Sirius had written back at last.

Harry tore the scrap of paper from his owl's leg.

"Read it!" she hissed. "Go on!"

He shook the paper out; began to read aloud: "Harry- I'm flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumours that have reached here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore- they're saying he's got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he's reading the signs, even if no one else is.

"I'll be in touch soon. My best to Ron and Hermione and Bellacine. Keep your eyes open, Harry." He finished the letter and set it on the cluttered table. The only noise in the now-empty common room was the crackling of the fire.

Bellacine was suddenly furious- how could he be such an idiot, to blab at the very first sign of pain, the dolt, why couldn't he keep his mouth shut? Now Sirius was coming north again, the one place he ought to avoid at all costs, where there were dementors and the full Ministry of Magic and a former Auror who would probably love to capture him....

"How _could _you?" she said quietly. "Harry, you- are- an- _idiot_. You're going to get Sirius killed for nothing!" Her voice had risen enough that she shouted the last word.

"I didn't mean to!" he yelled. "You think I meant for this to happen? I don't want him to get hurt or get caught any more than you do! He's my godfather, Bella! _I care about him too_!"

"You care about him enough that you ask him to come up here to get himself killed- or worse? Oh, but of course you do, Harry!" she shouted. "Why don't you write back and tell him you just made it up, your scar didn't really hurt, it was just a bad dream, you made it all up- because- because- If Sirius dies- because if Sirius dies it will be your fault and I will never let you forget it for as long as you live!"

"Bella, calm down!" Hermione ordered sharply.

"It's going to be your fault!" she screamed again; with a brisk snap of her wand her books were gathered in her arms. "Good _night_," she snarled, ad marched upstairs to bed. And ten minutes later Hermione was glowering down at her through a crack in the drapes.

"You don't feel at all guilty for that, do you?" she asked. "Because you know that Harry didn't imagine his scar hurting. It really did burn, and that's serious when it happens, that's important. It means- I don't know what it means- something about You-Know-Who, something bad. He had to tell Sirius, but it's not his fault that Sirius decided to come north."

"Don't say his name so loud!" she whispered urgently. "We don't know if Parvati and Lavender are really asleep or if they're still awake, Hermione...."

"Okay, okay," Hermione sighed, and she dropped the subject. "So what did Professor Moody want with you?"

"Nothing," she replied, not knowing what to say. Because what had Professor Moody wanted with her? He had told her a few simple things that he really could have just said in class, and asked a few simple questions that he could have asked Dumbledore,, and then he had kicked her out of his office....

* * *

The next morning at breakfast Harry went straight to her and explained in hushed tones that he had written to Sirius and told him that he had simply imagined his scar burning, there was nothing to worry about, please stay wherever you are, out of danger, and don't come north.

"Good," said Bellacine, and all was forgiven.

* * *

Over the next few weeks their lessons became progressively more difficult and the amount of homework increased tenfold, as Binns was now assigning compositions at the rate of one or two a week; Snape was threatening to poison them to make sure they'd thoroughly researched antidotes; McGonagall explained it was because they had O.W.L.s coming up the next year.

In Defence Against the Dark Arts, Professor Moody had decided the time was ripe to begin testing each of them under the influence of the Imperius Curse. She herself was surprised he was doing this only two months after introducing the majority _to _the Unforgivable Curses.

Hermione was too. "But- but you said it's illegal, Professor," she fretted the day Moody announced this. "You said- to use it against another human was-"

"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," Moody said. "If you'd rather learn the hard way- when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely- fine be me. You're excused. Off you go."

Reddening to the shade of Ron's hair, Hermione muttered that she hadn't meant it and kept silent for the rest of class.

Dean Thomas, Lavender, and Neville, all did dismally under the curse, as she had expected them to, and proceeded to accomplish nothing but thoroughly entertaining everybody else.

Moody ordered her to the middle of the classroom next. Bellacine walked solemnly to the open space in the centre. She tautened every muscle, clenched her hands behind her back, bent her head and screwed her eyes shut so she wasn't looking at the professor- it was coming-

"_Imperio_!"

She _would not _do whatever he ordered- she was prepared for this more than anybody else, she could fight it if she had to, she already knew some of the tricks, like avoiding direct eye contact-

_Look at me_.

No. No- she wouldn't. She was her own person, she didn't answer to anyone, she was Bellacine- Ras-

_Look at me!_

No. She felt her knees quivering with the force this took; her eyes were still wrenched shut; a portion of her control broke and she stumbled, fell, kneeled. Uneven footsteps moved towards her.

"_Look at me_."

Her control was relaxing, dangerously, it was now or never- She spoke through gritted teeth –only one word- "Please-"

Bellacine sensed Moody move even closer. Then he let her go. It was all she could do not to collapse.

"It doesn't stop, Black," he whispered. "Once it starts,_ it never stops_."

She stood.

**

* * *

**

A/N: Yeah, I always wondered...so if I were to kill Lupin, would anyone actually be able to arrest me for using an U.C.?


	6. Chapter 6 A Little Olympic Moment

**A/N: Well, here we are...another chapter...quite obviously...hello to everybody out there and thank you all so much for reviewing.**

**Did you know that **_**Psilocybe montana**__**. **_**the ****type species**** of the well-known genus of ****hallucinogenic**** mushrooms, does not contain any ****psychedelic**** compounds? No, neither did I. But apparently the supreme being that controls Wikipedia does. **

_

* * *

_

_TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT_

_The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o'clock on Friday the 30__th__ of October. Lessons will end half an hour early. Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the Welcoming Feast,_

read the sign in the Great Hall. The entire school was abuzz with excitement in the two weeks between the posting of this proclamation and October thirtieth. Naturally, Harry, Ron, the Weasley twins, and indeed most of Gryffindor decided to use their resources wisely, always pestering her with interrogatives about Durmstrang.

The school building itself was undergoing a thorough cleaning; it was decorated in full grandeur to entirely impress the visitors. The teachers, too were making quite sure the students would not fatally embarrass Hogwarts in some atrocious way. But when Professor McGonagall politely asked Neville, after a rather problematic transplant of body parts, to "kindly _not_ reveal you can't even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!", Bellacine could barely keep herself from bursting out laughing.

On the morning of the thirtieth, Harry received another reply from Sirius. He read it to them in a hushed voice over breakfast that morning. "'Nice try, Harry. I'm back in the country and well hidden. I want you to keep me posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts. Don't use Hedwig, keep changing owls, and don't worry about me, just watch out for yourself. Don't forget what I said about your scar.'"

"He shouldn't have come," she whispered at once. "And he shouldn't be using his real name on letters...just think, imagine if Hedwig was intercepted...."

"Why d'you have to keep switching owls?" asked Ron.

"Hedwig'll attract too much attention," Hermione answered. "She stands out. A snowy owl who keeps returning to wherever he's hiding...I mean, they're not exactly native birds, are they?"

"No...," Harry said absentmindedly. "Can I borrow Pig to write next time?" he asked Ron, and then looked across the table at her. "What about you? You have an owl too, don't you...I mean, Malfoy's got one, I've seen him getting packages...."

Bellacine shook her head. "Durmstrang," she explained, reaching for the platter of bacon rashers. "We couldn't have owls or any other pets...its' really not that sort of a school, you know? If you were supposed to be getting something from your parents or anything like that you had to go to Novy. Professor Novy. If anything came for you, he'd have it; he's sort of the deputy headmaster. Like McGonagall."

The bell, thankfully, rang early in Potions and everyone escaped quickly, relieved; they deposited their things in Gryffindor Tower and ran down to the entrance hall, where Professor McGonagall was ready to inspect them.

As the students of the four Houses passed muster, they filed out to the grounds directly in front of the castle. A limpid crescent moon shown, reflecting onto the Black Lake. Bellacine grinned with anticipation- Durmstrang of course would be coming by ship; she was excited to show her friends that her old school was just as magnificent as Hogwarts was.

They waited for what seemed like forever; it was getting very chilly with an icy wind sweeping off the dark water, although she suspected some of the first years were shivering with adrenaline anticipation and not cold.

"Aha!" exclaimed Dumbledore delightedly about twenty minutes or so later. "Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!" She glanced around eagerly, not sure where to look; a sixth year shouted out and pointed to a shadowy shape hurtling over the uppermost branches of the Forbidden Forest.

"It's a dragon!" someone screamed, hiding their head under their cloak.

"Don't be stupid...it's a flying house!" cried another first year. His guess, actually, was decently close: As the shape descended in the direction of the grassy stretch between the students and the lake, Bellacine saw it to be a giant pale blue carriage that definitely was at least the size of a house, pulled by twelve Abraxan horses, all palominos.

The vehicle hit the ground with a stupendous crash; before the carriage had even stopped rocking on its wheels, the size of the giant pumpkins growing behind Hagrid's cottage at least, a door swung open, a boy in powdery blue robes leapt out, and unfolded a set of steps at the bottom of the door. He sprang back respectfully.

From the interior a black-clad foot was extended with much care- only it was most certainly not a normal-sized foot; it was the size of a toboggan. And like it, the woman that followed, dressed head-to-toe in black satin, was most definitely not a normal woman. She was twice the size of an ordinary person, and the only person Bellacine had ever met who was even close to rivalling her height was their Care of Magical Creatures professor and Harry's friend, Hagrid.

Dumbledore lead the students in a round of welcoming applause; the lady stepped forwards, gracefully extending a ring-adorned hand.

"My dear Madame Maxime," he said, kissing her hand. "Welcome to Hogwarts."

They continued to speak, now too quietly for anyone to hear, as from the carriage a dozen boys and girls who all looked to be around seventeen emerged. Like the boy who opened the door, they wore pale blue robes, which seemed to be of thin fabric or some other light material, because they were shivering more violently than the Hogwarts students.

As the Beauxbatons students proceeded indoors, most everyone in Bellacine's own year began to excitedly ask how Durmstrang would be arriving. Seamus Finnegan inquired as to how big their horses would be. "Oh, much larger that these," she said, laughing. A moment later she heard it- the rumbling, sucking noise she had heard so many times before.

"Look at the lake!" Lee Jordan shouted. "Look at it!"

A wide, vicious whirlpool was growing, expanding in the centre of the lake; waves were crashing out from the epicentre, and many of the younger students were gasping out in fright or astonishment. The mast of one of the school ships- a smaller one, it appeared, because she only saw three masts with the rigging done up around them as it rose from the churning water.

"It's a mast!" Harry yelled.

The ship, which was actually the second-smallest of a fleet or about fifteen, slowly floated to the shore with a small red candle flame glowing on the port side. Someone threw out the anchor; the rudder was set and the person standing beside him- she could see only silhouettes in the moonlight- holding navigational charts rolled them up. Karkaroff emerged from his cabin topside and gave them the order to disembark, and somebody let down the gangplank.

The Durmstrangs filed down the gangplank, occasionally outlined by faint lights glowing from the portholes. They were already wearing their winter uniforms- the cold must have come early this year.

"Dumbledore!" called Karkaroff, leading his dozen students up the slope. "Howa re you, my dear fellow, how are you?"

"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," he answered politely. The two headmasters shook hands.

"Dear old Hogwarts," Karkaroff said, looking up at the brightly lit castle with a thin-lipped smile. "How good it is to be here, how good....Viktor, come along, into the warmth...you don't mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold...." As he beckoned forwards the boy who had been standing closest to his headmaster, Bellacine sighed and scowled: so the tsarevitch had come- not that she was surprised- this was, after all, Viktor, Krum, Karkaroff's favourite student.

Then Ron leaned across Harry and Hermione to address her. "Bella," he said, his eyes wide," you didn't tell us Krum went to Durmstrang!"

"Yeah, well, he does," she said miserably.

"For heaven's sake, Ron, he's only a Quidditch player!" Hermione said quellingly.

"Only a Quidditch player?" he exclaimed. "Hermione- he's one of the best Seekers in the world! I had no idea he was still at school!"

Shaking her head over the gaggle of sixth-year girls they passed who were busy debating whether or not Krum would sign their hats in lipstick, she repeated, "Yeah, well, he is."

"_I'm _getting his autograph if I can," Ron continued. He moved to pull one out of his bag, then remembered it was up in his dormitory. "Any of you have a quill on you?"

"You are not going to embarrass me like this," Bellacine muttered. "None of you are asking for his autograph while I'm with you. None of you are- are- are stalking him through the hallways, all right?"

Ron grumbled at her stupidity as they fought their way into the Great Hall. Bellacine hadn't caught a close look at the Durmstrang contingent yet- they were seated at the Slytherin table, which she and her friends always made an effort to pass quickly- so she had no idea who had come, aside from the tsarevitch; the students from Beauxbatons had taken seats at the Ravenclaw table. They still appeared quite cold, most of them wearing shawls wrapped around their uniforms. She, Ron, Harry, and Hermione took seats at the end of the Gryffindor table.

"That's right, smarm up to him, Malfoy." Ron scowled; Bellacine assumed Draco was trying to talk to Krum. "I bet Krum can see right through him, though...bet he gets people fawning over him all the time...."

"Damn straight," she muttered.

Behind her someone laughed and said, "Watch your language, Bella Regulovna...you don't want to give the foreigners a bad impression."

Bellacine jumped in shock and spun around; standing behind her seat was Vasily Gnedich. "I had no idea- you came- I didn't know you were seventeen already!" she "You are, aren't you?"

"My birthday's in October," he reminded her, and then he added, a little proudly, "only three of the seventh-years could come." And he would be in seventh year already, since Durmstrang started a year before Hogwarts, a system she was just getting off now. Like Hogwarts, Durmstrang mandatory education ended in seventh year, but unlike the British school, one could take up to two more years, something like a less necessary edition of university that most people opted into anyway.

"So, who else came?" Bellacine moved down closer to Hermione so there would be room for him to sit.

"Sadly, the tsarevitch and my cousin Anton...Isay Poliakoff, Aldona Buinauskas, Tadeusz Domagala- that's Leszek's older brother- Anna Schroeder, Ekaterina Andropov, Sasha Vassikin, Ernst Rommel, Hans Fyr, and one other girl, some ninth-year...Vera, Vera Kamar. That's twelve of us, right?" Vasily said, counting them off again.

She suddenly became conscious of the fact that her friends were staring quite obviously at her. "Ah...right," she mumbled. "Harry, Ron, Hermione- Vasily Pyotorovich Gnedich. Vasily- Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley."

Vasily stuck out his hand; the first to react, reach forwards, and shake was Hermione, but she turned to Bellacine and said, "Vasily Peter what now?"

"Pyotorovich Gnedich," he repeated. "Don't worry, you needn't remember all of that. We Russians, we like to do things differently. We find it interesting."

Ron suddenly asked, "You know Krum?"

"Of _course _I know who he is," Vasily said derisively. "If you had him at your school since forever you'd know him too. Believe me, it is far from something to enjoy. He's as awful as he looks. He's the only person Karkaroff acknowledges the existence of; he leaves Novy to deal with the rest of us. And he can do anything he pleases, anything the rest of the school would get five hundred detentions for, because he is Krum and Krum is _wonderful_."

"Still," he shrugged, "he is famous."

"Famous isn't everything, kid."

They had talked right through Dumbledore's opening speech. As he sat at the head table, immediately engaged in conversation by Karkaroff, the golden dishes lining the tables filled with a wide variety of foods, some common, some foreign, glowing under the lights of thousands of candles that hovered above them in midair.

The only thing of any interest that really happened during the meal was the arrival of one of the Beauxbatons girls, who had finally taken a scarf off her head, requesting the bowl of bouillabaisse. Her long, straight hair was a silvery-blonde colour that glinted in the firelight, her eyes were deep sapphire blue, and her teeth were perfect. She took the bowl from a dumbstruck Ron and returned to the Ravenclaw table.

"She's a veela!" he exclaimed breathlessly. Vasily glanced at the girl and looked away; she knew what he was thinking: If she really was a veela, which was the same as being part-human, dangerous just like a werewolf. Except the danger of the veela was seduction, naturally. She knew Beauxbatons had a reputation for being a rather liberal school, the polar opposite of Durmstrang, but it was surprising- that they had sent this girl to compete for the Triwizard Tournament.

"Of course she isn't," Hermione said fiercely. "I don't see anyone else gaping at her like an idiot!"

"I'm telling you, that's not a normal girl!" he retorted, staring after her. "They don't make them like that at Hogwarts!"

Harry muttered something to the extent of that they 'made them okay' at Hogwarts. Vasily, too, had said something, that sounded a lot like "Oh really?" to Ron's statement, but when she looked at him he was intently contemplating his plate.

"When the two of you have put your eyes back in," Hermione snapped, glaring at Ron, "you'll be able to see who's just arrived."

They looked up to the high table; two more men had just filed in and taken seats- Ludo bagman on Karkaroff's right and Mr. Crouch on Madame Maxime's left. Dumbledore spoke a few brief words to each of them and stood once more, and the whole Hall grew silent at once.

"The moment has come," he announced brightly, and there was a quiet murmuring throughout the Hall like a hidden current. "The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket, just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. But first, let me introduce, for those who do not know them, Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Co-operation, and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."

For Bagman there was a long and loud round of applause, perhaps because of his fame as a professional Quidditch player- Quidditch players clearly always got all the attention- or perhaps because he looked much friendlier than stern Mr. Crouch, who received only a brief smattering of applause.

Dumbledore went on to name and introduce the five judges, the heads of the three schools and the two Ministry officials who had arrived. Then he asked Filch to bring in 'the casket,' at which there was another undercurrent of murmuring. The caretaker carried in from the far side of the Hall a medium-sized old wooden box, blackened with age, which he placed gingerly before the dais.

"The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector," Dumbledore announced. "The Goblet of Fire."

He drew out his wand and tapped three times on the rough wooden chest. At once there rose up from it a coarsely carved wooden cup, or rather a goblet. Dancing around the surface were pearly blue flames- a sort of Wizarding Olympic Torch. Harry glanced at it once and, as if on cue, began humming the song quietly; at which Hermione shot him a look.

"To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation," he said after explaining the candidacy process, "I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross it.

"Finally, I wish to impress on any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion is selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obligated to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name into the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet. Now, I think, it is time for bed. Good night to you all."

Vasily was the first person to stand at their end of the table. "We're sleeping and having classes on the ship," he said to Bellacine, "but we're eating meals in the castle, so I'll see you tomorrow morning." He hurried off to find his classmates, who had been milling around the Slytherin table, Krum hounded by Hogwarts students.

As the four of them passed this table to return to Gryffindor, Karkaroff came up to his students, stroking his goatee nervously. "Back to the ship, then," he ordered. "Viktor, how are you feeling? Did you eat enough? Should I send for some mulled wine from the kitchens?"

"Professor, _I _would like some wine," muttered one of the other boys- Isay, Vasily's friend- sarcastically. Unfortunately Karkaroff was not well-receptive to sarcasm and glowered at the boy, snapping, "I wasn't offering it to _you_, Poliakoff."

Both parties reached the door at the same instant. While Harry, Ron, and Hermione stepped aside, instinct rose up unbidden in Bellacine and she stepped forwards to open the door for her former headmaster.

"Thank you," said Karkaroff automatically, without sparing her a glance. Instead his gaze travelled, and fixed on, to Harry. He froze and behind him the line of Durmstrang student stopped in their tracks. Karkaroff stared at Harry- more particularly at his lightning-bolt scar, which he tried to smooth down unsuccessfully. Isay nudged one of the other three seventh-years, Anna Schroeder, and pointed openly. Vasily knocked his arm down.

"Yeah, that's Harry Potter," growled Professor Moody behind them. Karkaroff whirled to stare at the ex-Auror with a mixture of fear and intense hatred. Moody returned the expression of hatred with interest.

"You!" he hissed.

"Me," Moody replied grimly. "And unless you've got anything to say to Potter, Karkaroff, you might want to move. You're blocking the doorway."

Bellacine couldn't help it; she began to smile and then to chuckle and finally to laugh outright. She couldn't stop herself...the look on Karkaroff's face was so very infuriated and so very immensely unsettled that it was hysterical. His face by now wiped clean of everything but fury, Karkaroff turned slowly to glare at his collected class. "Which of you laughed?" he barked.

Most of them shuffled their feet nervously; the smarter ones drifted to the back of the group. Vasily mouthed _good one _at her.

Finally a ninth-year boy with sandy brown hair spoke up. "Nobody, sir."

Their headmaster scowled. "You are lying. Who was it?"

"Nobody, sir," he repeated, looking anxious.

"Detention!" he barked. "Six of you, detention tonight unless someone owns up. Fyr, Domagala, Gnedich, Andropov, Rommel, Buinauskas, starboard bow tonight at ten."

Bellacine had stuffed her knuckles of her left hand into her mouth to hold down more laughter, but another wave of it rose up in her, despite knowing she ought to shut up; she couldn't restrain it at all, not this time- A much louder wave of laughter broke forth, and Karkaroff slowly looked over his shoulder, and his eyes narrowed.

"Miss Black," he snapped. "Miss Black. _You overstep_. Detention. Tonight and Saturday and Sunday. The rest of you, back to the ship."

Isay gave him a mock salute behind his back; the sandy-haired boy who had spoken before, Vassikin, led the group back.

"You might want to remember," Moody growled quietly, "Karkaroff, that she's not your student any longer. You haven't got any power to put her in detention on that resurrected wreck of yours. Go on. Run along back to your little boat."

Malevolently, he swept from the entrance hall. Professor Moody's scowl was just as harsh; his disfigured face only made it appear more so. And she wondered again- _what does he want with me?_

* * *

The entirety of Gryffindor was up early the next morning, and raced down to the entrance hall as soon as they were dressed, watching the mesmerising blue flames flickering around the rim of the Goblet of Fire. Bellacine knew some of the older students from Hogwarts who had put forward their names- Angelina Johnson, a Chaser for Gryffindor and a sixth year who had just celebrated her birthday; Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff Seeker, and a few Ravenclaws. Everyone from the visiting schools had added their names as well, earlier that morning. There were a few who attempted to sneak past the Age Line- a Ravenclaw girl, a Hufflepuff boy, and most spectacularly, Fred and George. The twins had just stepped across the line etched into the floor when they were thrown back with a _bang _across Dumbledore's magical barrier, sprouting long white beards and leaving their friend Lee Jordan and Lizzie roaring with laughter.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron headed down to Hagrid's small (though it had a raised roof to accommodate his height) house on the edge of the Forbidden Forest early on Saturday afternoon. Bellacine had left the school with them, but in the end switched course and headed for the span of grassy shore were the ship was moored, bobbing gently in the waves.

Although the gangplank was up, she knew the unlocking spells and had it down in seconds. She was halfway up when somebody came running over from the other side.

"Get off girl, whoever you are!" he commanded. "We don't want English on this ship!"

"Vassikin, I tarred half the deck you're standing on in detention two years ago!" she yelled back. "I'm Bella Regulovna; let me on!"

"You do not attend this school any longer, you have no right to be on this ship."

Bellacine exhaled sharply, annoyed, and pulled out her wand. Continuing up the gangplank, she paused where it joined the deck. She waved her wand in a figure-eight pattern and a glittering wall appeared momentarily, then vanished. "What happens if I walk through that?"

"The usual."

"Let me through, then."

"No."

"Why not?"

"No."

"Mr. Vassikin, tear down that wall-"

There was a terrifyingly loud explosion from somewhere beneath Vassikin's feet; smoke began to pour from the hold a few seconds later. Below, someone was bellowing at the top of their lungs, and momentarily Vasily emerged.

"Potions," he said to Vassikin. "We all knew it wasn't going to work, having Rommel teach Potions, and yet he is. Oddly enough it was his fault, too." He noticed Bellacine then. "What're you doing here?"

"Whiling away the hours, conferring with the flowers, consulting with the rain, at least till someone lets me on board."

"Oh, that sounds interesting. Vassikin giving you trouble?"

The older boy had gone down into the heart of the ship; the copious amounts of smoke billowing up were beginning to lessen.

"No, not really. He wouldn't let me on and the Wall was up. You showed before anything interesting really happened."

There was a second loud crack and yellow-orange steam flooded out of the hold. About three different voices, Vassikin's distinct amongst them, began swearing vigorously, and the flow of smoke increased.

"Well, I was going to open it and let you on," said Vasily with a hint of an ironic smile, "but I doubt that is a good idea any longer. Shall we?" He clicked his fingers and the Wall sparkled in the bright sunlight for an instant, then disappeared long enough for him to pass through.

They walked about ten yards along the shore of the Black Lake; Bellacine suddenly said, "You don't have to keep sitting at the Gryffindor table, you can go sit with everyone else from Durmstrang if you like, there's really no reason for you to-"

"I know of the existence of far too many people at the Slytherin table that I don't like, okay?" he snapped. "I told Isay to come sit with me. It's his own fault he wanted to stay with Anna, isn't it? Bella, anything that gets me away from Anton and the tsarevitch- and a bunch of idiots, too- that's a good thing." He picked up a rock and threw it in the lake. It skipped, twice.

"Okay, just wondering."

"Any real reason you came to the ship?"

"I was going down to Hagrid's place with my friends," Bellacine explained, "but then I decided not to. He's Harry's friend, not mine. I don't know him like they do. So I went to the ship instead. No reason."

"Bored?"

"Essentially."

"You know how to skip rocks?"

"Yes. Sort of. Maybe. Maybe not. Not really. Occasionally if I'm lucky, I can, I suppose."

"I'll show you how," said Vasily; he began to gather some smooth rocks from the shoreline. "And luck has nothing to do with it; it's how you hold and how you throw. You used to play Quidditch, you ought to know that." He showed her how to find the good flat stones, how to toss, Vasily guiding her hand at first. An hour later she could skip a rock twice regularly. Vasily could manage five, and did so three times.

"We ought to go back now," Bellacine announced, glancing at her watch. It was nearly time for supper, and the champions from each school would be chosen immediately following the meal. Nodding, he threw the last stone. It brought up a wall of shining clear-green water as it curved away, rippling, glassy in the sunlight as it arced over the lake.

* * *

"Who d'you think the champion will be?" she asked the table before her as she took a seat for dinner. "For all three schools."

"Hope it's Angelina for Hogwarts," said Ron through a mouthful of food. The Halloween feast was just as extravagant as the Welcoming Feast the night before- the house-elves were outdoing themselves in the kitchens- but everybody was too tense and excited to care about the heaping platters of meat and vegetables. "I couldn't stand it if it was Diggory."

"You know, he's not that horrible," Hermione put in. Now that S.P.E.W. was founded and her extreme hours in the library were over (till December, when she would need to start studying for end-of-year exams), she ate at a more normal pace. "He was in Muggle Studies last year, and he's really not that bad, just...Cedric-ish."

"Cedric-ish," repeated Vasily, looking amused. "I wasn't aware there was such a thing. Personally," he said to the Weasley twins, "I would've wished it was you two." He too had been in the entrance hall for Fred and George's spectacular attempt on the Goblet of Fire.

While George only stroked the spot where his beard used to be wistfully, Fred asked, "Hey- how did you get in, if you're in the same year as us?" When Bellacine had introduced the three boys to one another she had simplified things and said Vasily was in sixth year as well.

"Seventeen already," he said. "Don't worry about it, though. There's no way anyone from my year is getting in- they only brought us because that was the way the competition at our school worked, and we got in, so Karkaroff had to let us. I don't want to admit it, but I think it could be the tsarevitch for Durmstrang in the end."

Hermione, who sat beside Bellacine, hissed in her ear, "The _who _for Durmstrang?"

"Not the who, the Krum," she hissed back. It wasn't meant to be funny- at least, she didn't think it was- but for some reason Hermione elbowed her ion the side and muttered something about bad puns, laughing. "Why do you say that?"

"Has anyone ever told you what Krum did in Dark Arts?" asked Vasily. She shook her head; she had no idea what this story was about. "Right, well, this a couple years ago. The year right before you came, I think. Krum didn't like having to take Dark Arts-he didn't think it was right to be learning that, probably, even though it's not like we do anything with it. So he walked out one day. He's never been back since, either, so he doesn't know a thing hardly, but for some reason Karkaroff didn't care. Likely because he's Krum and everything he does is _wonderful_."

She started to laugh, but then Hermione whispered urgently, "Quiet!" and she hushed, noticing that the entire hall had grown silent. Dumbledore stood before the goblet, which Filch had brought in at the beginning of dinner; he waved his and in a wide sweeping motion and all the candles in the Great Hall went out except for those in the jack-o'-lanterns that lined the wide windows.

The flames dancing around the rim of the goblet were now the only thing anyone could look at, transfixing in the dark room, brilliant blue-white one moment, then, suddenly, bright, bright red that burned her eyes as scarlet fire spouted like a geyser into the air- a blackened piece of parchment fluttered on a gentle updraft, Dumbledore caught it, and the whole Hall held its breath.

"The champion for Durmstrang," he read; in the dim shadows behind the flaming goblet was Karkaroff's outline, staring expectantly at the Hogwarts headmaster, "will be Viktor Krum!"

"No surprises there!" yelled Ron over the raucous din of applause and shouting that filled the Great Hall. At the Slytherin table, Krum stood and walked past the high table into a separate chamber.

"Bravo, Viktor!" Karkaroff bellowed. "Knew you had it in you!"

"Oh, this is going to be awful...," muttered Vasily.

The flames turned red again; Dumbledore caught the second piece of charred paper and read aloud, "The champion for Beauxbatons Academy is Fleur Delacour!"

Another storm of applause broke out as Fleur, the girl who looked to be part-veela, walked gracefully into the room Krum had entered. Someone wolf-whistled as she passed their table. The Goblet of Fire turned red once more, and out shot a third bit of half-burnt parchment.

"The Hogwarts champion," read Dumbledore, "is Cedric Diggory!"

Practically the entirety of the Hufflepuff table jumped to its feet, screaming and clapping in such a way to make the long, narrow windows vibrate in their frames. Dumbledore smiled genially as Cedric walked past him into the room where the champions waited.

"Excellent!" said Dumbledore as the cheers died down. "Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count on all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering on your champion, you will contribute in a very real-"

But Dumbledore stopped; the Goblet of Fire was again throwing out red flames. A fourth scrap of parchment came out- without hearing Bellacine watched him read the name on it, once to himself and then, with a note of incredulity, aloud- and suddenly everyone was staring at the Gryffindor table- and Harry was slowly standing up, and walking nervously to the high table- and beyond it, into the room where the champions waited- and all she could think was that nobody was going to be very happy about this. Including her. Because, of course, as usual, everything good always happened to _Harry_.

**

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**

**A/N: And so are sown the seeds of discord....**


	7. Chapter 7 Some Inconvenient Truths

**A/N: There are two cows standing in a field in Britain. One turns to the other and says, "So, what do you think of that mad cow disease going around? Are you worried about it?" The other says, "No, why should I be? I'm an airplane."**

* * *

"That's not true," said Vasily flatly. "Bella, you know Harry can't cross the Age Line, he's fourteen. He couldn't have put his name into the Goblet."

"How do you know?" she retorted. "He- he could've had somebody else put his name in for him!"

"Like who?" he pressed on. "Anybody old enough from Hogwarts would have put their own name in, not helped some fourth-year- they want to get in, they don't want competition. No one from Durmstrang or Beauxbatons would even bother."

They were at breakfast, mid morning the day after Harry had been selected as one of the school champions, alone. Ron had come down quite early, eaten wordlessly, and departed; Hermione had left ten minutes ago with a stack of toast wrapped up in a napkin; Harry hadn't been downstairs at all so far. Last night and this morning, he was ll anybody could- or would- talk about, including her.

Bellacine herself had not attended the roaring party in the Gryffindor common room the night before. Instead she had been sitting cross-legged on her bed with the drapes pulled shut and her wand lit, trying not to get ink on the duvet, dashing off a note to her uncle.

_Sirius_, she had written_, I don't think you're going to get a letter from Harry about this, so I'm writing instead. Today the Goblet of Fire chose the names for the three champions in the Triwizard Tournament, and somehow Harry got in there as a fourth champion. The other Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory, a Hufflepuff, and Krum is competing for Durmstrang. I don't know how Harry got in there but it seems to me like he put his own name in. I don't know how. _

_We've got a new Defence teacher, Moody. The ex-Auror. He's weird, but he knows his stuff. He keeps talking to me, I don't know why. Mostly he's asked me about Durmstrang and my parents. It's strange but it's nice to have a good teacher._

_There's really not much else to say, except that I hope you're all right and please don't do anything that's going to get you in more danger than you're already in. Example: Don't come north because you read this. Stay where you are. Dumbledore knows what he's doing. STAY IN AFRICA or wherever you are. _

_Bella_

The letter was now sitting in her pocket, waiting to be posted, a tightly rolled piece of parchment with the strongest locking spell she knew on the sealing wax. Nobody except for Sirius would be able to open it.

"I'm leaving," she said suddenly, and stood. "Have to go mail something. See you at lunch."

Vasily waved a good-bye as she trotted out of the Great Hall up to the Owlery. Standing close by the door, stroking one of the school barn owls, was Hermione. Farther back, sitting on the straw-covered floor, was- _Harry_.

"What are you doing here?" Bellacine snapped. "Writing off to the Daily Prophet to tell them all about how wonderfully famous you are now?"

Harry said angrily, "I didn't put my name in! Why would I do a thing like that? I don't want to get myself killed here- Who're you writing to?"

"It doesn't concern you," she snapped. _Well, technically speaking, it does_. She strode across the room and tied her message to the leg of a waiting barn owl. Carrying it over to the wide opening in the wall, she allowed it to fly away...hopefully as free as Sirius would remain...._No_, she told herself sharply, thinking of the dementors, _that's not going to happen...don't think about that...._

When she returned to Gryffindor Tower that evening, there was a school owl waiting on her bed, the very same owl that she had just sent to Sirius that morning. She was surprised to see a reply had come so quickly...so he was nearby, the idiot...."When did this come?" she asked.

"It's been there since I got back from dinner," Parvati said curiously. "Who's it from?"

"Friend of mine, nobody you know," she mumbled vaguely, breaking the seal and turning away.

_Bella,_

_Too late. I'm north. I'm his godfather, Bella; I have a duty to protect him._

_And no, I don't think Harry put his own name in the Goblet, and I'll tell you why: Whoever put it in there, most likely wants him dead. This Tournament is a perfect opportunity to get somebody killed. We both know Voldemort is getting stronger, or at least his supporters if not him, because the Death Eaters were out at the World Cup. Whatever it is, something is happening._

_I want to talk to you, and soon. Can you make sure you're by the common room fire at one o'clock the morning of November 22__nd__? _

_Be careful and keep your eyes open; let me know about anything unusual. In the meantime watch out for Karkaroff and for Harry, though for different reasons, which I'm, sure you knew in the first place. If something's wrong go to Dumbledore or to Moody._

_Sirius_

She folded the letter into a tiny rectangle and tucked it away in her pocket, planning to incinerate it in the common room fire first chance she got.

"What is it?" Parvati asked curiously. Bellacine fixed her with a bland glare that, she hoped, clearly said, _Stay out of my business_. "Just asking, for Merlin's sake," she huffed. "Am I not allowed to ask? I'm just trying to be nice to you for once, because you certainly haven't ever been."

"Oh really?" she snapped, wondering where this was going. "Well, then, I'm glad you have the mental capacity to formulate an opinion of your own, I never expected that of you...I mean, you could do a bit more work on making it a wee bit clearer, but it's an improvement-"

"This is what I mean!" she exclaimed. "You wonder why nobody likes you- well, it's not because of Sirius Black, it's because you think you're better than everyone else, that rules don't apply to you, that-"

In walked Hermione. "What's going on?"

Parvati and Bellacine were standing at opposite ends of the dormitory, scowling at each other, arms folded. Bellacine thought it was rather obvious. "Nothing," Parvati said coldly, and stalked out.

"What's going on?" she repeated, settling the S.P.E.W. notebook and collecting tin into her trunk.

"I got a letter from- you know, _him_," she said shortly. "Parvati asked who it was from and of course I couldn't tell her, so she threw a fit about how apparently I'm not very nice." She looked expectantly at Hermione- she herself had never heard a word of this-

"Well...," Hermione said, looking uncomfortable, "well, it is true, in a way...you've always acted sort of...above everyone else, you know, sort of haughty and cold...." She trailed off nervously.

"And why didn't anyone tell me this before?"

She was surprised when Hermione answered at once: "Because you were always our friend...whatever happened last year, you were always friends with at least one of us- I'm not saying that you aren't now, all I'm saying is that last year it really was our fault in retrospect, generally speaking- but now it's you being mad at Harry for putting his name in the Goblet, which he didn't...and Ron's the same as you, he thinks he put in his own name, but he didn't...."

It was true: the group of the four of them had fractured down the middle, leaving Harry and Hermione on one side and Ron and Bellacine on the other (and Vasily occasionally, even though he believed Harry's story, but she held him accountable for nothing). Technically Hermione played the neutral role, the go-between.

"That wasn't a reason, that was a soliloquy," said Bellacine bleakly, but they both laughed and exited the dormitory, books in hand, together. But when they got to the common room, Hermione went over to Harry and she was left alone at the door, staring at the bright scene ahead of her, only barely out of reach. But still far away.

* * *

There was another problem, another inconvenient truth, which Bellacine started to ponder as she lay in bed staring at the heavy scarlet drapes over her bed, while Lavender Brown and Parvati discussed a fight the Indian girl had had with her Ravenclaw twin sister, Padma. Originally, the thought that popped into her head was something vague about having a sibling in another House. Then she thought of Sirius and her father, Gryffindor and Slytherin; then she thought of Draco.

They had always practiced ignoring each other in third year, except for once after the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch game in the spring, when Draco loaned her his broom. Otherwise they had kept their distance; grateful, she reckoned, for the long-standing rivalry between their Houses. During the holidays she had bought his silence about her Gryffindor friends by doing all the essays the teachers had assigned over the summer for him; in exchange, he went along with whatever story she presented.

But this year...at the World Cup, there had been that memorable argument, when she, Bellacine, had told Draco she wanted nothing more to do with him...and now he was ignoring her in a completely different way. Before, he had avoided her, and she knew by the simple fact that she very rarely saw him except in class that he evaded her purposely. Now, his gaze swept through her like she was glass, like she no longer existed.

What she had said...that she wanted nothing to do with him, or the Malfoys (and that she didn't care if he told them about her friends, a damming blow)...what did that make her? The way she was acting now, in Gryffindor and perfectly happy...perfectly proud, for heaven's sake....Wasn't family more important than anything? And here she was, betraying all her family stood for every day of her life...Sirius didn't count.....What was she becoming?

"You're no blood traitor," Vasily said at once when she casually, quietly broached the subject at breakfast. "You have a long road to walk before you achieve that sort of title, and you're not the sort of person who would walk it."

Bellacine allowed herself a privately relieved smile before Harry arrived at the table. Like everyone else, she had read the article in the _Daily Prophet_- the one where he'd been interviewed by Rita Skeeter, that didn't seem like him at all- but, then, did she really know him? Because Harry never would have sounded so idiotic s the person he had become in the press: "Yes, sometimes at night I still cry about [my parents], I'm not afraid to admit it....I know nothing will hurt me during the tournament, because they're watching over me...."

Well then. Always nice to find out that one knew people so very well, always nice to know about their "unplumbed depths" (Rita Skeeter's phrase, not hers, although she wished she could lay claim to the "unplumbed deaths" line somebody had uttered in the corridor; that was good), if that piece of rubbish on newsprint, with its sickening descriptions of Harry's "tragic past" and the near-complete avoidance of anything about the other champions, could be a sign of anything other than a horrible lousy journalist and the fact that one should never, ever assume they knew a person.

* * *

Aside from Hagrid's increasing dual obsessions with an unfortunately omnivorous-with-homicidal-tendencies horde of Blast-Ended Skrewts and one French headmistress; a supply of badges that alternated between SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY- THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION in glowing green and POTTER STNKS in red, which she suspected had been funded b Draco; Peeves's introduction to the wondrous joys of Broadway show tunes, a weapon worse than the Avada Kedavra in the hands of your average poltergeist, life progressed rather well over the next two or three weeks. That wasn't saying much, even though it took a long time to say.

On the Saturday before the first task, there was an opportunity to go into Hogsmeade, something Bellacine wasn't quite looking forwards to; she had no one to go with and didn't feel like going alone. Harry and Hermione were sticking together, and even though Hermione was the same as ever, she didn't much fancy the idea of spending five hours with Harry. Ron had to stick around at school for some reason, and Karkaroff hadn't given the Durmstrang students leave to go into the village. This didn't mean they weren't allowed to go to the castle at times other than meals, as she often saw Krum frequenting the library.

She knew this only because Harry avoided libraries containing Hermione on principle (the principle of keeping one's sanity and self-respect, that is), so logically the only champion-free place where Bellacine could actually spend time with one of her friends was in the library, which was better than nothing. This ground to an abrupt halt when Harry started showing up every afternoon, and Krum's fan club too- the latter spent its time sneaking through the stacks, hoping for a word with the famous Seeker.

Bellacine assumed the two champions were spending so much time there because of the approaching first task of the Tirwizard Tournament on Tuesday the twenty-fourth. But this only make her think of Harry again, and what had been lost through his stupidity and her stubbornness, which served no purpose but to put her in a vaguely pessimistic mood ; the sole thought that cheered her at all was the idea of seeing Sirius in the fire that evening. Or Sunday morning- same difference, really.

Having gone to Hogsmeade rather than waste five hours at a school devoid of everything but vertically challenged first-years and a handful of irate teachers, she stopped in at Honeydukes to refill a supply of secret weaknesses, then went on to Zonko's Joke Shop to examine the selection of weapons of mass destruction.

There Bellacine found Ron, the twins, and Lee Jordan stocking up on nothing Filch approved and everything he detested. Ron was the first person to notice her- "Guess what Hermione told me," he said excitedly.

"No idea."

"Well, I don't know how she heard this- I reckon Harry found out and told her"-he grimaced and Bellacine shook her head-"but Fleur, Fleur Delacour, she really is a veela, or at least part."

She could imagine Karkaroff's reaction when he heard this, and later that evening, she told Vasily everything at dinner.

He frowned. "Why did they let her in the Tournament, then?" he said shortly. "I don't care...it's only a veela, for heaven's sake, but there are certainly plenty out there who _would_ care, and for something that's supposed to be as peaceful as possible...." They were both speaking quietly- this, after all, was the Gryffindor table and any brief comment either of them made, especially Vasily, would be the perfect opportunity for their exile into Slytherin hell.

"Fleur put her name in the goblet herself- unlike some people I know," she reminded him. "Maxime obviously doesn't care, and now it's too late, since her name's been chosen. Binding magical contract and all that."

"Incidentally, what does that mean?" asked Ron, who had only caught the tail end of their conversation. "That is, I know what it means, but what happens if you don't do your part of the contract?"

"It's like an Unbreakable Vow," said Vasily. "If you break it, you die. End of story."

Meanwhile, Fred and George carried on a separate conversation- "We ought to write to him, see if he'll pay up," Fred suggested. "It might have been an accident, you never know-"

"I don't think it was," said George.

"You don't think what was an accident?" Ron butted in. "Who're you writing to?"

Fred glowered at him, his face full of _Stay out of this_, and said, "In the Three Broomsticks this afternoon, before Zonko's, when you got butterbeer spilled on you? Well, George here reckons that it wasn't an accident, and maybe we should write them and complain." Despite his flimsy, implausible excuse, he turned away and none questioned him.

Bellacine shrugged and sat back, and saw someone from the Slytherin table heading towards them- she didn't know who it was from this far away, but he wore red Durmstrang robes. She smiled a little, uncertainly, thinking Isay had come to join them.

Life being life, it was not his friend Isay but Vasily's cousin Anton who crossed to where they sat, a sneer playing across his face. She'd always found his manner to be reminiscent of Draco's to everybody else in Gryffindor, except Anton was three years older (which made crossing him a waste of time for her) and high-up on the Byzantine system of a student hierarchy that governed the Durmstrang student body- no Houses, ergo no prefects from each to keep order, ergo the headmaster appointed one or two people each year and a ninth-year student to oversee them all (something like the Head Boy position formerly filled by Percy). Vassikin was this, but he had at least retained a sense of humour.

"What are you doing here?" was the first thing he said when he reached them. The second was, "You should be sitting with us at the Slytherin table, both of you."

"Really?" said Vasily without looking up, toying with his knife. "Hadn't heard that one before." A pause, during which Anton looked to her with the same sneer on his face.

"I was Sorted into Gryffindor," she retorted. "This is my House. I'm supposed to be here."

Somehow Anton managed to look even more condescending without any major changes in his facial expression. "My point exactly! You're from a perfectly respectable pureblood family, you've been brought up well, you were going to the best school in Europe, and a year later you're sitting at this mudblood table!"

It was a good thing he had been speaking in German and not English, because if he had, Bellacine felt certain a decent-sized portion of the table would have jumped him when he said "mudblood" at that volume. Still acting completely nonchalant, Vasily said, "You know what? Go be an idiot someplace else."

"Quickly," she added.

"You- watch it," he snapped. "And as for you- the Professor doesn't want you sitting here any longer. Get up. You're sitting with us and the Slytherins from now on." Vasily said nothing and remained in his seat, completely ignoring his elder cousin. Anton was very still- he hadn't expected this, she could tell, this level of defiance. Finally he sneered, and his voice was deadly soft, "You are the idiot, Vasily Pyotorovich, not me. Ignore me, I don't care. But remember I have Vassikin behind me and behind him I have Professor Karkaroff. Get up."

The two cousins stared at each other until Vasily swore loudly and stood up. He brushed past Anton and marched across the Great Hall to the Slytherin table, taking a seat beside Isay.

"What was that all about?" asked Ron, looking thoroughly bewildered, after Anton too left. "Who was he? Where'd what's-his-name go?"

"Vasily Pyotorovich," she corrected, drumming her fingers on the table. "That was his cousin Anton. And remind me," she continued, "next time somebody asks how Durmstrang was, remind me to say that it's not as great as it sounded."

The common room was quite full after they all returned from supper, but everyone gradually drifted upstairs to their respective dormitories, so the need did not arise for Bellacine to make any of them leave herself. Some of the last to head up were the Creevey brothers, who had somehow procured a stack of the POTTER STINKS badges and spent till gone midnight accomplishing nothing but getting them stuck on POTTER STINKS. They gave up and went to bed by half past, and she was alone in the common room.

Finally, it was a quarter to one in the morning, Sirius was due to arrive within fifteen minutes; Bellacine cast the best charm she knew- one that would distort their words enough that no one could understand them; she didn't know a complete, reliable silencing charm- on the doors to both dormitories, and doused all the lights but for the crackling fire.

Five minutes till...she sat down on the hearth rug...and then the entrance door burst open. Bellacine leapt to her feet- at first there was no-one there- but then she saw a glint of slivery-blue material as Harry pulled off his Invisibility Cloak.

He seemed to be in a very great rush, but when he saw her, silhouetted by the fire, he skidded to a halt. He had leaves in his hair.

"Where have you been?" she asked, trying to convey a sense of urgency. "Never mind that- you ought to be in bed, Harry; you might have another photo shoot tomorrow-"

"Look," said Harry peevishly, "if you don't mind leaving, I have to talk to-"

"Sirius!" Bellacine exclaimed, for her uncle's head had just appeared in the fireplace. She understood her whilom friend's meaning at once- he was here to talk with Sirius as well- "You never wrote you were going to talk to both of us!" she exclaimed accusatorily.

"Nice to see you too," said Sirius, laughing. He looked much healthier, much happier, than he had when she last saw him, flying away on the hippogriff Buckbeak- his hair was washed and cut, and his face fuller, but his grey eyes were still so flat.

Harry immediately took a seat before the hearth; she knelt beside him. "Sirius- how're you doing?"

"Never mind me, how are you?" said Sirius, looking concerned.

"I'm-" began Harry, but instead of a simple "fine," he started to pour out how nobody believe he had not put his name in the goblet, about Rita Skeeter and how everybody thought he was in it for more fame, about Ron's anger and jealousy- and how she, Bellacine, did not believe him- at this Sirius glanced sharply at her- "and Hagrid's just shown me what's coming in the first task, and it's dragons, Sirius, and I'm a goner," he finished desperately. He turned to her, and for the first time in weeks she looked him in the eye, and saw how afraid he was.

And it all made sense, it all was logical- so perhaps he really _was _telling the truth-

"I believe you," she whispered. She was quite conscious of the fact that both Harry and Sirius were staring at her; she quickly reached out and gave Harry a brief one-armed hug.

"Right," said Sirius briskly. "Dragons we can deal with, Harry, but we'll get to that in a minute...I haven't got long here, I've broken into a Wizarding house to use the fire, but they could be back at any time. There are things I need to warn you about."

Harry looked blank and unsettled, and Sirius continued, "Karkaroff- Harry, he was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don't you?

"Yes- he- what?"

"He was caught, he was in Azkaban with me, but he got released. I'd bet everything that's why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year- to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put him into Azkaban in the first place."

"He talked to the Ministry," Bellacine picked up, "and he told them a lot of other Death Eaters' names, and they let him out. He's vaguely reformed- where do you think I learned the Curses from?...but all in all-"

"He's not very popular in Azkaban, I can tell you," Sirius continued grimly. "Watch out for the Durmstrang champion too, Harry- you never know-."

"Okay," Harry agreed. "But...are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the goblet? Becaseu if he did, he's a really good actor. He seemed furious. He wanted to stop me from competing."

"We know he's a good actor, because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn't he?"

Sirius went on to talk about what he'd seen in the _Daily Prophet_- the attack on Moody before school began, Bertha Jorkins, the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup- while Bellacine could only stare into the vibrant green flames, hardly even seing her uncle's face....He had written that he wanted to talk to her, had he not? Had he not written this? Yet he barely acknowledged her, only speaking to Harry....She ought to be more dangerous; he was in pressing danger...but she didn't particularly care at the moment....

But did not Sirius care about his family, his own family? She remembered the look that had crossed his face when she had mentioned her father the previous year, a look of deep dislike...almost loathing...but it couldn't really be....

But when Sirius vanished quickly wihtout even a parting word- she understood, she understood, but still- when Ron appeared in the common room, bellowing at Harry and she could do nothing but hide in the shadows, grateful for the darkness when she was _tired _of darkness and whatever connotations it carrried, when she returned to the silent girls' dormitory, even though she had no right to, Bellacine felt remarkably and dizzingly alone.

**

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**

A/N: Well, at least I could make her get over it in one chapter.

**Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who live in places where they have Thanksgiving...to the rest of you...happy I-don't-know-what. Happy Tuesday, all right? Happy Tuesday!**


	8. Chapter 8 Trial by Fire

And so, quickly, too quickly, the two and a half days left to them before the first task passed. Monday morning Harry finally came up with a plan- use a Summoning Charm to get his Firebolt, which he could use to fly past the dragon. There was one problem here- Flitwick had been teaching them this in Charms for ages now, and Harry was no closer to mastering the Summoning Charm than he was to becoming friends with Draco.

Every moment of free time they could scrape up, Harry, Hermione, and Bellacine put to use in an empty classroom, the two girls collecting paper clips, textbooks, and rubbish bins, and then Harry would shout "_Accio_!" He did get progressively better over time- but would it be enough? They worked till gone midnight that day, and trudged into Gryffindor Tower not entirely heartened, but encouraged somewhat.

The school had the afternoon of Tuesday off so as to watch the first task; at lunch Professor McGonagall hurried over to the Gryffindor table. . Seeing her coming, Harry pushed away his plate- despite Hermione's pestering, he clearly wasn't going to be able to eat a bite.

"Potter, the champions have to come down onto the grounds now....You have to get ready for your first task."

_If he's not ready by now, he'll never be_, thought Bellacine, discouraged, but she pulled on an artificially cheery smile and wished him a "Good luck" along with the rest of the table. Around the Hall, the other professors ushered their champions out the door with equal urgency.

It was an inappropriately bright day, both for this late in November and for the matter at hand. The sunny ceiling above was cloudless and a bright azure blue, with not a hint of danger.

Soon they all left the castle and wandered out into the blinding afternoon; everyone seemed to be swarming in the direction of the Forbidden Forest and the Black Lake, where a massive stadium was just visible, and details made imperceptible by the sun. It felt very similar to the World Cup- a vast current of humanity all rushing to a large, gilded stadium.

"Oh, I hope he's all right!" Hermione whimpered out of fear and nerves as they passed a large, multicoloured tent where the four champions were waiting. She kept repeating it as they entered the stadium.

"He'll be fine," Bellacine said absently, because every time somebody mentioned it, she just thought about it more. She could not deny the thin taste of worry gnawing at her stomach, nor the unnatural chill that seemed to creep across her neck. _It'll be fine, really_, she chided, but she couldn't stop imagining the worst...there were dragons, dragons were large and fire-breathing and vicious, Harry would be lucky to escape unharmed and she could not bear the thought of losing another friend....

In an attempt to occupy her mind, Bellacine surveyed the stadium they were now in, climbing up a long, shining staircase for a good seat. The seats, enough for the entire school and for spectators, ringed around a large flat dirt enclosure. Beside the entrance they'd come through there was another gate, a holding area...she couldn't see in, but the loud, thundering roars of dragons furious with indignation rang throughout. At the other end of the stadium there were five gilt seats on a dais, and the commentator's box raised up behind them.

She, Ron, and Hermione filed into a row of seats empty but for Fred and George. Then Vasily pushed his way out of the crows and sat down next to Bellacine, who hadn't been able to see him since Anton ordered him back to the Slytherin table—then again, this was the way Durmstrang worked and they were accustomed to it; you did what you were told and, far away, commiserated later.

The stadium filled, four out of the five judges—Karkaroff, Dumbledore, Mr Crouch, and Madame Maxime—filed into their seats, whilst Ludo Bagman nodded to them and stepped into the commentator's box.

Bagman, wearing the same yellow-and-black striped robes he wore to the World Cup, shouted, "Welcome, witches and wizards, to the first task of the first Triwizard Tournament in well over a century. The task of the champions will be to _get the golden egg_." He paused, surveying the crowd, which watched him eagerly in return. "Their task is to get the golden egg...from a dragon!"

At this there went up a collective gasp from the crowd, which had quieted when he spoke. Two girls, Hufflepuffs, she thought, in the row in front of her put their heads together and began to whisper furiously. Ron was turning a shade of white, bluntly juxtaposing his bright hair; Vasily, eyebrows raised, said nothing. Whilst the audience's attention was diverted, the second gate was pushed open by a team of wizards and a bluish-grey dragon came out into the enclosure. Bellacine guessed it was female, the retrieval of the egg playing to its mothering instincts. The dragon half-lumbered, half-flew, to the far end of the enclosure, where she crouched protectively over a clutch of eggs. Most of them were a mottled brown or black, resembling smooth-hewn rocks, but one glinted in the afternoon sunshine.

"Our first competitor," roared Bagman, again immediately instigating silence, "will be Mr Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts School facing the Swedish Short-Snout!"

Cedric walked into the pit from the other gate, looking very small and inconsequential. About halfway to the dragon he hesitated, pointed his wand at a rock, and shouted a spell. The rock, now a black Labrador, sprang up and trotted towards the dragon.

Seeing the mother dragon occupied, Cedric began to sidle around the edge of the inclusion. He was almost directly behind the dragon, which had reared up leaving the eggs exposed underneath, when she apparently realised that the Transfigured dog was doing nothing but trotting amicably back and forth in front of her, but a boy behind her was about to steal one of her eggs....

The dragon whipped around faster than Bellacine would have thought possible for such a large animal and roared flame at Cedric, who leapt away just in time-

"Oooh, narrow miss there, very narrow!" said Bagman.

Now the game was properly on: He ran back and forth, sending up coloured sparks every time he moved, trying to divert the relentless dragon, Bagman all the while shouting possibly-helpful, more-like-distracting things like," He's taking risks, this one!" and "_Clever _move—pity it didn't work!"

"He ought to get it over with and hex her, not run back and forth tiring himself out," Vasily said.

She shrugged. "What is it they say; the best offence is a strong defence?"

"No," he corrected, "the best defence is a strong offence. And define 'they.'"

"Offence is defence."

"Defence is offence."

Another loud roar went up—this time it was the spectators, not the dragon. Bellacine looked back again; Cedric was holding the golden egg aloft (though quite far from the dragon, which was being restrained and pulled away by the same team of wizards) and looking victorious, even with a burn across his shoulder.

"Very good indeed!" enthused Bagman. "And now the marks from the judges!" He was the first to put his up, a seven formed out of gold ribbon that rose from his wand. The Beauxbatons headmistress was next, giving an eight, then a nine each from Crouch and Dumbledore, and another seven from Karkaroff.

"It's not quite as bad as it sounded," said Hermione, sounding entirely unconvinced of herself. Fleur Delacour entered the stadium meanwhile, against a Welsh Green. "At least he's flying, so he won't be on the ground like they are...."

Fleur walked across the field like a person going to their execution with a stay of said hidden under their cloak. She started waving her wand in an intricate pattern when she got halfway out, half-singing, half-chanting a spell. "Oh, I'm not sure that was wise!" Bagman exclaimed as she drew closer to the emerald dragon in ever-tightening circles.

"Good idea," Vasily said approvingly. The dragon's eyes hovered closer and closer to fully closed; it seemed to relax....."Trying to calm it down instead of working it up—maybe not such a good idea!" he added, as the dragon let out an enormous, fiery snore, igniting Fleur's skirt.

She set it out with a jet of water from her wand, however, and stealthily snuck up on the dragon from the side; it stayed asleep and then she too had her golden egg.

"Very good!" the announcer shouted. "And now, the marks!" Four eights and a seven—the seven was from Karkaroff—thirty-nine all told. "And here comes Mr Krum—Mr Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute, facing the Chinese Fireball!"

Krum strode out onto the packed dirt, now stirred up by the two champions gone before him; he kept walking, not pausing until he was almost upon the dragon. It eyed him and his drawn wand warily, and rightly so, and hissed a spurt of fire out of its reptilian nostrils. He raised his wand to eye level and bellowed "_Conjunctivo_!" loud enough for the entire stadium to hear.

The Chinese Fireball shrieked in unbearable pain as the spell hit her in her glowing red eye, an eye that began to pour black smoke as though it had been lit on fire.

"This from someone who walked out of Dark Arts?" she murmured. "Or did you forget to tell me something—he walked back in, perhaps?"

He said dismissively, "That—we learned that in Charms. You know Rukovskaya. He'd tell us Avada Kedavra was a charm if Karkaroff would let him."

The dragon, still blinded and making loud screeching noises of agony, was stomping around in half-circles—it, like the other dragons, was chained to the ground with enough room to move, though not enough to fly—and trampling its nest, in search of whomever did this to her—then she stepped a little too far to one side—Krum was in—"That's some nerve he's showing!"—and he held the egg aloft—"Yes, he's got the egg! The scores for Mr Krum!"

Eight, eight, eight, seven from Bagman, ten from Karkaroff. Of course.

"Mr Harry Potter, also of Hogwarts school—the Hungarian Horntail!" Bagman roared, and with another loud blast on a whistle Harry walked in, looking much smaller than everyone else, much more insignificant, much less prepared-

Before he had even walked the length of a broomstick, he raised his wand and shouted, "_Accio Firebolt_!" There was a ghastly pregnant pause, a very long and looming pause, under the shadow of the gallows. It had to work; she and Hermione had practiced with him long enough and he had to know it, he certainly had known it last night...it was taking far too long....

Something brown, there was something brown flying over the glassy blue lake, over the edge of the spiky Forbidden Forest, over the high arch above the gate he had only just walked through, and the Hungarian Horntail's thick spiked tail engraving furrows in the dust, and Harry reached up and caught the broom.

Now clutching her face in terror, Hermione was moaning softly, "They shouldn't have allowed him to compete—How can they expect him to know what he's doing-oh, oh god....Oh, Merlin!"

Bellacine would have reached over with a soothing hand, would have said something comforting, but every muscle and tendon in her body was clenched too tightly to relax or even to move. Her friend was quite right; this was too dangerous, too much to expect, too deadly; Dumbledore said the Tournament had been discontinued once because of the death toll. There was a _death toll _for this thing, how could they think it was safe?

Bagman was presently screaming things like, "Great Scott, he can fly! Are you watching this, Mr Krum: but she did not find this encouraging in the slightest. Harry circled the Horntail on his Firebolt, diving closer again and again before swooping away, like Cedric and Fleur, but in this case she hoped it was an actual strategy and not merely immediate planning for the immediate problem, not just tactics—She realised they had never figured out a strategy; hopefully he knew what he was doing, but sometimes Harry forgot to think.

Then the dragon lunged at him, rearing upwards, snapping at him with her serrated teeth the colour of old bone, her black wings unfurling, leaving her nest unprotected—he dived for it, skimming the dirt—then pulling up sharply, with something shining brilliantly as it was hit full-on by a glint of sun in his hands.

Shouting incomprehensibly with relief and joy, Hermione leapt to her feet, and the entire row soon followed—the entire row but for Ron, who stared white-faced blankly into the space in front of him. Bellacine could barely hear Bagman calling out the scores—the only one she actually heard was Karkaroff's four, but the others added up to thirty-six. Ron still sat motionless, looking in shock.

"Ron!" she shouted over the din, learning past Hermione, "Ron, what is it? You look like you've seen a—"

"Merlin, that could have killed him!" he said weakly. "He could have died! Whoever put his name in the Goblet of Fire—they're trying to kill him! Why didn't you tell me I was being such an idiot?"

"Because you were being too much of an idiot to listen to us," Bellacine said coldly. "Brilliant deduction, yeah, but a little overdue." Ron winced at her sarcastic tone and she glowered back, but when he shoved past her onto the stairs, practically falling down them instead of running down, Hermione following, she went after as well, finding him waiting outside the first-aid tent.

Harry walked out ten minutes later, holding his golden egg under his arm, grinning—a grin which stopped in its tracks when he saw Ron. The two boys eyed each other.

"Harry, you were brilliant!" Hermione exclaimed in an attempt to break the silence. "You were amazing! You really were!"

Standing very stiffly, Ron shot her a _shut up_ glare. He wavered momentarily, then stammered out, "Harry—whoever put your name in that goblet—I—I reckon they're trying to do you in!"

"Caught on, have you?" he snapped. Ron flushed and opened his mouth, and as they stood there watching him gape like a fish out of water, Harry suddenly said, "It's okay, forget it."

"No—I shouldn't've—"

"_Forget it_."

With a loud cry of "You two are so stupid!" Hermione burst into tears, and fled the scene. She supposed she ought to go after her; she'd leave Harry and Ron alone to reconcile, and went off to catch up with her other friend, who by now had wiped her eyes dry, and in fact looked as if she had never been crying at all (well, it _had_ been short-lived). She was standing outside the gates to the dragon pen, deep in conversation with none other than Krum.

"Yes, I do think it went rather well," Hermione was saying. Bellacine caught her eye and sent her a raised-eyebrow look, but she kept talking, "considering the general idea, but there's still the issue that it's inordinately risky, and it might not be entirely legal—they're supposed to notify the Muggle government if they're bringing dangerous animals into the country. Well, the Welsh Green is obviously native, but how did they even get the Fireball here without anyone noticing?"

Krum was about to say something but she cut him off. "Hermione. Leaving. Castle. Now."

Blinking hawkishly several times, Krum said, "You go to Durmstrang, don't you?"

"Past tense," she corrected briskly. "Used to go. Went." She took Hermione by the arm and firmly dragged her out of earshot. "What was that all about? You—talking to Krum—"

"I only said 'congratulations' when he walked by me," she shot back defensively. "He started talking to me, all right? He asked me my opinion of the task in general and we started talking. That's not my fault, is it?"

"But he's _Krum_," Bellacine countered, knowing even as she spoke that her arguments were miserable. "You know our opinion of him, I mean what he's like—not that you're supposed to have the same opinion, that's not what I'm saying. You know what I think of forcing opinions on people; I'd never do that, but we actually know what he's like...."

"Oh, leave well enough alone," said Hermione, frowning. "Please let's not fight about anything, it's just a waste of time, I can't stand it."

Thus they headed back up the gently sloping hill towards the castle, Hermione blathering on about S.P.E.W. and the need to get more people involved the whole way, Bellacine not really paying attention, but she let her go on for once, reckoning she might as well.

* * *

With the onset of December (and the onset of several bucketfuls of sleet and snow pouring from the surly grey sky), the only real thing to look forwards to was the Christmas holidays. It seemed like they would never come, but fortunately, even farther away was the second task, sometime in late February. This was excellent, as the only clue, the golden egg, did absolutely nothing but reveal a tendency to scream until somebody gathered their wits and slammed down the lid.

The skrewts were "thrivin'," meaning their class was not; almost every one of them sustained a bad burn or a scorched cloak hem by the end of a lesson, and Hagrid began keeping large packages of Stover's Magical Burn Banisher near the gate. This was the one thing the rivers of slush were good for—the ground was so soaked that at least the skrewts could not accidentally start any fires.

Divination was, as expected, as enjoyable as the weather (meaning not at all); Bellacine tried cracking quiet jokes about Trelawney's obvious lack of credibility, but all it did was make Neville, otherwise disregarding her, scowl. Defence Against the Dark Arts didn't help the matter much either—when Harry opened the egg for the first time, at the wild party held in Gryffindor Tower that night, Neville had panicked immediately—"It was someone being tortured! You're going to have to fight the Cruciatus Curse!"—and in class, Moody was calling on her more often than Hermione. It was clear she was one of his favourite students, yet wasn't that completely illogical?

So when Hermione ran up to them after said class, as she, Harry, and Ron were giving the Fat Lady the password, shouting, "The most wonderful thing's just happened!" Bellacine was quite surprised and, naturally, curious; they followed her lead, if only to get answers to their queries.

Hermione led them all the way down to the entrance hall, where she took a left instead of the usual right, leading to the dungeons—the left way led to a cheery basement corridor, illuminated by bright dancing torches. She wasn't positive, but guessed that this led to the Hufflepuff common room and dormitories.

"Oh, hang on," Harry suddenly said; he seemed to be cottoning on to something, stopped in his tracks. "Wait a minute, Hermione...I know what this is about." He nudged Ron and pointed to one of several oil paintings lining the walls; Bellacine looked at the picture, a brimming bowl of fruit.

"Hermione!" Ron reprimanded. "You're trying to rope us into that spew stuff again!" For the past few days, Hermione had actually shut up about S.P.E.W. on request, this development was a surprise. She realised that the portrait, the very same that Fred (or was it George) had mentioned once, accidentally; it led to the kitchens.

"No, no, I'm not! And it's not _spew_, Ron-"

"Changed the name, have you?" he retorted. "What are we now, the House-Elf Liberation Front? I'm not barging into that kitchen and trying to make them stop work, I'm not trying to make them stop work, I'm not doing it—"

"I'm not asking you to!" she said loudly. "I came down here, just now, to talk to them, and I found—oh come _on_, Harry, I want to show you!" She dragged Harry forwards and, reaching out and touching a green pear, tickled it gently. It squirmed and giggled, then turned into a shiny green doorknob, which she tugged.

Bellacine had an impression of a large, sparkling clean kitchen, the walls lined with reflective copper pans and a vast brick fireplace, before something small and brightly coloured hurtled at them, squeaking, "Harry Potter, sir! _Harry Potter_!"

It leapt up and latched onto him; Harry gasped, "D-Dobby?" choking for breath, and suddenly she recognised this house-elf. The very same house-elf that had served her mother's family, that had served the Malfoys for sixteen years, before mysteriously disappearing almost two years ago, was now bouncing ecstatically in circles around Harry.

Bellacine too gasped, "Dobby?" disbelievingly, and at this Hermione turned to face her with a disapproving expression across her face.

"Yes," her bushy-haired friend said quietly, "you _would _know him, wouldn't you? So, tell me, how did you treat him compared to the rest of the Malfoys?"

"Hermione, it's not like that, for god's sake!" she said hastily. "I never—I wasn't—for heaven's sake, ask him! See what he tells you!"

Dobby, who had been squeaking with delight over Harry Potter now turned at the sound of her voice, and at once was less jovial, sinking into a half-bow. "Is this Miss Bella, Dobby wonders...?" he said; he was almost talking to himself. "Dobby is surprised to see Miss Bella at Hogwarts; Dobby did not know she was at Hogwarts...."

"Yeah...well, it's me, Dobby," Bellacine said unwillingly. "Er, well, how're you doing? I--ah--I didn't know you were here either."

The elf looked conspiratorially around the gleaming kitchen, then leaned in and whispered, "Dobby is getting paid for his work!" The other elves, which were previously occupied with stuffing every kind of sugar-laden food available into the boys' waiting hands, edged away, aghast, as though Dobby was a pathogen.

"That's excellent, Dobby!" Hermione encouraged, but Bellacine couldn't think of a single thing to say—who ever heard of paying a house-elf?—but for, "That's...ah...that's very remarkable, Dobby." She glanced around hopefully, wondering if this was the right thing to say. She meant remarkable in the literal sense of the word, 'worth remarking upon,' not that it was brilliant. The question was, had Hermione noticed?

She had. Her face was immediately lit by a fiery, nearly-angry, light; however, she said quickly, "It's all right, Bella...why don't we go in farther, there's someone else you lot will recognise—"

"It's not good," she said, shaking her head. "Sorry...I just can't, I can't do this right now, I'll wait outside," Bellacine walked out the heavy kitchen door without a backwards glance until she was outside, to watch the green doorknob slowly melt back into the portrait, now nothing but a slightly raised bump.

She plopped down on the stone floor; she felt numb. What had Hermione expected her to do? She knew she'd lived with the Malfoys for as long as she could remember, she knew she would've known Dobby, so what on earth had Hermione been thinking? She had been raised pureblood...Hermione might want her to change, but did _she _want to change? She was herself, she didn't want to be who other people made her, she wanted to be independent of their expectations: Late last year, Dumbledore asking a portrait in his office—her something-great-grandfather, Phineas Nigellus Black, if he still thought she belonged in Slytherin...she did, really, but they wouldn't listen to her....

This wasn't like other things, this wasn't like last year's situation with Lupin...it was only a house-elf; she harboured no grudges against house-elves...but this was certainly not how people were meant to behave—not only was the entire purpose behind a house-elf to work without gratitude and pay, but the elves themselves enjoyed it._ Everyone_ knew that. The Malfoys weren't some horrible antebellum plantation owners to keep house-elves...it wasn't a crime, it was what both parties wanted, an age-old tradition furthermore....

She heard light footsteps coming from farther down the corridor and looked up. A brown-haired girl was headed her way.

"Excuse me," said Bellacine, pulling in her legs.

"Hello--oh, hi, Bellacine," said the girl, glancing at her. It was a Hufflepuff in her year--Susan Bones, she thought, but she could never keep track of them. "Are you lost? This is the Hufflepuff wing--well, and the kitchens. Rest of the school is that way." She pointed in the direction from which Hermione had led them.

"Thanks."

Susan smiled and nodded and went on her way.

_Well, they don't _all_ hate me_, Bellacine thought.

When Hermione, Ron, and Harry came out a few minutes later, she got up and followed them back to the Gryffindor common room. They talked about Dobby and Winky--who had come to work at Hogwarts and having a miserable time of it, it appeared--and Mr Crouch, and somehow Ludo Bagman got worked into the conversation, and then Hermione, who had been giving her the cold shoulder on the way back, looked at her.

"I'm not going to be what you want me to be," said Bellacine sharply.

Hermione sighed. "I'm not trying to do anything to you. I want fair conditions for house-elves, because the way they're treated most of the time, I don't think it's right, and I want to do something about it. Look, I _know _I carry on about it sometimes--"

"All the time--"

"--but it's what I want to do, and if I change for everyone who wants me to shut up or who ridicules me behind my back, and I know about all the people that do, it would be the same thing. Same difference. We're not changing for every person that wants us to be something else, because if we all did and we did it every single solitary day there wouldn't be any point, we'd all be flat people in a flat world and there wouldn't be any point. I don't care if you aren't interested--no, really; it doesn't matter. I'm not going to go all _A Clockwork Orange _on you--"

"_What _on _earth _is a clockwork orange?" interrupted Bellacine loudly, having a very odd mental image.

"The point is," Hermione interjected before she could put her vision into words, "I don't mind. I'm sorry for making you go in there. You get the point."

"I get the point," she affirmed.

"_Girls_," muttered Ron to Harry. "I swear, I couldn't follow a word of that."

**

* * *

**

A/N: _A Clockwork Orange_ by Anthony Burgess. There's a bit where the evil Dr Branom forces this kid to watch recordings of people being tortured to get him to be less violent and ends up completely destroying the poor kid. Very good book (if you read the real version with the last chapter. If you read the American version it has an awful ending. Another reason why the British edition is always better). Anyway...wow, I really hated that chapter. Sort of like how I hate writing Quidditch games, only worse, because I essentially had to do it four times in one chapter. Oh well. At least it's the only task that it's technically possible to watch. The others will be more fun. Hopefully.


	9. Chapter 9 The System

**A/N: So it would've been up sooner, dear readers, except for this minor problem of me forgetting my notebook at school over Christmas and being completely unable to type....My profuse apologies, except that would take too long and I want to get this up. My concise apologies will have to do.**

* * *

It was the end of a Transfiguration class that had seemed to stretch on forever; McGonagall, mercifully, had given them the last five minutes as a study period. That favour wasn't being utilised by the class, necessarily. Hermione, typically, was dashing off the homework at a speed that Bellacine considered astonishing, but she disregarded the amount of work their professors had heaped on them, choosing instead to occupy herself with watching a covert duel between Harry and Ron with a couple of the Weasley twins' fake wands.

"Potter! Weasley! _Would you pay attention_!" Professor McGonagall's sharp voice cut through the hectic atmosphere like tempered steel.

The two former fake wands were now destined to live out the rest of their numbered days as a squeaky rubber parrot and a headless haddock, only just decapitated Nearly Headless Nick-style, its shiny head drooping towards the floor.

"Now that Potter and Weasley have been kind enough to act their age," she continued, fixing them with a deliberate stare, "I have something to say to you all."

She glanced nervously at Hermione.

"The Yule Ball is approaching—a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and an opportunity for us to socialise with our foreign guests. Now, the Ball will be open to only fourth years and above—although you may invite a younger student if you wish—"

Lavender leaned over and whispered something behind her hand to Parvati, who began to giggle shrilly. The other girl, after a glance at the back of the room—where Harry and Ron were sitting—whispered something back and they burst into simultaneous hysterical giggling fits. She and Hermione rolled their eyes in mutual disgust, and McGonagall went on.

"Dress robes will be worn"—so _that_ was what the whole thing at the beginning of term was about; poor Ron, with those awful violet robes of his—"and the ball will start at eight o'clock on Christmas Day, finishing at midnight in the Great Hall. Now then—the Yule Ball is a chance for us to all—er—let our hair down."

_Not a chance, Professor_, she thought, eyeing the teacher's tight grey bun.

"But that does NOT mean that we will be relaxing the standards of behaviour we expect from Hogwarts students. I will be most seriously displeased if a Gryffindor student embarrasses the school in any way." She fixed her steely gaze on the decapitated parrot once more. And then the bell rang.

Harry, detained by Professor McGonagall, who said something about the Tournament in passing, waved at them to go ahead without him. She, Hermione, and Ron left the classroom, heading for the Great Hall for dinner; she noticed that Ron wore a very worried, disturbed sort of expression.

"What's wrong?" asked Hermione.

Ron shook his head adamantly, but a few seconds later he blurted, "I have to find a _date_? An actual _girl_?"

"In your case, yes, that's definitely the idea," Hermione retorted. She kept looking expectantly after she said this, but scowled and walked faster when he muttered desperately something along the lines of, "Where'm _I_ supposed to find a _girl_?"

* * *

After the minor debacle a few weeks ago when she wasn't talking to Harry had been resolved, Bellacine had taken again to going to the library with Hermione, but this time it was so that she could talk to Vasily—he had a twenty-five inch Arithmancy essay due the day before the Christmas holidays.

Even though the only Durmstrang teacher to come to Hogwarts was Karkaroff, they were still taking all the usual classes—some, like Arithmancy, Muggle Studies, or Astronomy could be almost entirely self-taught (example: van Rin's Muggle Studies was nothing like Burbage's class that Hermione had taken the year before; all he ever did was make them read every Muggle book he could find); the other fundamental classes—Charms, Dark Arts, Transfiguration—could technically be taught by any witch or wizard who knew what they were talking about. Potions, currently, was being taught by Ernst Rommel, a ninth year with a scarily brilliant grasp of the subject.

"Nobody's actually learned much this year," Vasily informed them one slow day in the library, when he couldn't get the book he needed because Madam Pince was scouring it with a special powder she bought in Diagon Alley by the pound after some idiot student spilled cocoa on it. "Karkaroff doesn't care what we do if we behave, and he's certainly got no intention of doing the other teachers' work for them, so it's one class a day and a few essays when Savchenko remembers we exist."

"You ought to at least try to learn _something_!" Hermione reprimanded.

"Oh? Look here, _you _try learning something when the only classroom you've got is something the size of an extended broom cupboard lit with lamps about as bright as a black hole because I-don't-know-why and you lot are holed up in a nice, large, well-lit, warm, _solid_ castle. And don't lecture me," he said crossly.

"You know," she said airily, leaning back, "I read in a book somewhere that Russia has a...what was it? Ah yes, Russia has an 'air of melancholy' about it. I think."

"Bella," they both said warningly.

"Anyway, what do you think of the Yule Ball?" asked Hermione, changing the subject. "Personally, I think it's an excuse for all those girls to act like idiots when they could be doing something worthwhile." The _like crusading for S.P.E.W. _part was understood on her behalf.

"You're both girls," he observed.

"We're sane. They're not."

A group of Slytherins—Theodore Nott, a boy she as pretty sure was called MacDougal, and a few others she didn't recognise—strolled past their table; Nott glanced sidelong at them, a half-smile crossing his face. Immediately she was wary—smiling Slytherins that she didn't know were never a good sign. When they had passed by, someone was standing in the long shadow cast by the shelves.

"Excuse me?" said Krum.

Bellacine and Vasily, customarily, disregarded him as if nothing had happened and kept talking, but Hermione laid down her quill—she was doing the Transfiguration homework, both for herself and, later, for Bellacine, who considered most of their homework a waster—and looked up.

"Do you know where I could find—I am not sure what it is called, a Transfiguration textbook, I need it for school, by Thorogood—"

"Oh, I know where that is!" exclaimed Hermione, leaping up and heading off in the opposite direction from which the tsarevitch had come; said idiot followed.

Once they had vanished into the tall dark shadows of the stacks, Vasily looked up from his paper, frowning. "Rademacher hasn't sent us any work to do all autumn....The only homework we've gotten is from Savchenko and Rukovskaya. He doesn't need to find anything for Transfiguration....He doesn't even need to _do_ anything; he's not in Arithmancy...."

"Let it be," she whispered dismissively. "As far as we know, he's not some lunatic who murders people in libraries—she'll be fine." He waved a hand to show his understanding and began scribbling down several long columns of numbers, and around that time Bellacine became completely disinterested and, voluntarily, finished the Transfiguration homework that Hermione had left lying open on the table

* * *

She waited and waited for Hermione, but by the time every last bit of homework was completed and Vasily headed down to the ship, it was quite clear that her friend would not be present anytime soon; nor could she be found at supper. Around this time Bellacine began to make a concerted effort, checking out every possible spot she could be. Library—no; hallway by the kitchens—no; common room—no; dormitory—yes. The only one there.

"Where have you been!"

"Here," she responded quietly, glancing towards the closed door. "I've been here the whole time." Studying, apparently, given the open Charms book on her bed. Bellacine tossed her Transfiguration things onto the bed as well. "Thanks for bringing those for me."

"What did Krum want?"

"Nothing," said Hermione quickly—too quickly. She caught Bellacine's raised-eyebrow-you-really-can't-expect-me-to-believe-that sharp look. "Okay, okay—promise you won't tell anybody? Not anybody—not Harry, definitely not Ron."

"Yes...," she said hesitantly.

"He—he asked, Krum asked—well, he asked someone to the Yule Ball; I mean, he asked me to the Yule Bal, and I said yes, and I'm going with him—" she stammered.

"You're doing WHAT?" Bellacine shouted. "You're crazy! Absolutely crazy! He doesn't know you at all, and unless I'm very much mistaken, you are the one who said he was—what was it?—'only a Quidditch player,' am I right?"

"Yes, you're right," Hermione admitted. "But I don't need you to broadcast it to the entire tower, thank you _very _much. It's why you can't tell anyone—especially not Ron. He'll be horrible; either he'll start asking me to ask Krum for his autograph or something, or else he'll get really angry, and I don't know why he does that—!"

"Fair deal. I won't tell." They shook hands to seal it. "What about Vasily? He was in the library, he knows something's up, he'll see Krum on the ship."

She sighed dejectedly. "If he asks, you can tell him. Otherwise, no."

Frankly Bellacine thought Hermione had things going quite well—the rest of the school was running around like chickens with their heads cut off looking for a date, Harry included, against his will, because apparently all of the champions needed a date. Poor kid. She didn't much envy him.

Already people were coupling up—Seamus and Lavender were going together, which didn't concern her in the slightest, but listening to the as-of-yet dateless Parvati and her blathering on about it for hours upon hours upon hours on end was giving her a migraine. Idiots gave her migraines. Dean, who wasn't quite as mindless as Seamus but still of questionable brainpower had asked some Ravenclaw girl with a blandly forgettable name. In Durmstrang, too, the obvious: Krum and Hermione, though it seemed no-one yet knew of it; Isay and Anna

Christmas holidays came at last, and Bellacine, who thought this would be a welcome break from, say, the world, instead found herself sucked into the insanity that was the Yule Ball.

It started when Neville walked straight up to Hermione immediately after the end of their last class before the holidays, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and asked her to the Yule Ball.

After some degree of guilty hemming and hawing she turned him down, and the next day he asked Ginny, who agreed. Bellacine discovered this was only because as a third year she wouldn't have been able to go otherwise when she accidentally blurted, "But I thought you—and Harry—"

Ginny scowled accusatorily at Hermione, who half-smiled, apologetic. "You _told_."

"It was painfully obvious, Ginny," she countered. "Look, if you swear not to tell anybody, and I mean _anybody_, I'll tell you who I'm going with."

"You know I won't," Ginny promised, and then turned to Bellacine. "I do. I still fancy him. But he doesn't., so what's the point? I might as well—ease up a bit—be able to talk in front of him without going a thousand shades of scarlet, at least." The look on her face as she said this was dauntingly final.

"Krum. Viktor Krum," she leant forwards and whispered abruptly. "He asked me in the library a few days ago. Somewhere in the vicinity of that bookshelf over there, I think," she added. They were, surprise surprise, in the library.

Ginny squealed, sounding not unlike an echolocating bat, and almost fell out of her chair in shock. "_Viktor Krum_ asked you to the Yule Ball?" she demanded incredulously.

"Told you everyone thinks it's strange," said Bellacine smugly. "Point one: He's four years older than you. _Four years_. Point two: You hardly know each other. Point three: He goes to Durmstrang."

"I've noticed, thanks," she retorted coolly. "Does that really matter? I thought Dumbledore himself said that the whole point of the Tournament is to get to know wizards from other countries—"

"Krum goes to Durmstrang, Hermione," she interrupted. "Durmstrang is all-pureblood. You're Muggle-born. Why is he going to the Yule Ball with you?"

"Just because he's from a pureblood school doesn't mean he can't ask me—This is exactly the kind of racism I've been talking about all year! House-elves and werewolves and this—this _caste system_ with Muggle-born and half-blood and pureblood; everyone acts like it's an old decrepit system, which it is, and like it's over, here at least, but it is never going to be over until people stop making these distinctions and living by them like they're the truth and believing in them!"

"I believe in it," she retorted. "I believe in half-blood, Muggle-born, half-breed, pureblood, blood traitor, whatever you like. I believe in it because it's true, and if you are something, you are what you are and you can't change it. Parts of it, yes, parts of it are screwed up. Like Fleur Delacour, that French girl who's part-veela, and that makes her part-human, a half-breed. Her grandchildren will be half-breeds and because of that her grandchildren's' grandchildren will be half-breeds. It's not going to end.

"You can't fight the system from the outside; you've got to get inside it and bring it down from within; you cannot destroy the outer wall but you can destroy the core. Dumbledore will never be able to break it, Harry will never be able to break it, but the purebloods will, because this is our system, we built it, and we know its flaws."

Quite sure she had not raised her voice—she remained seated calmly in her chair—Bellacine was almost amazed by the equally astounded way Hermione and Ginny were staring at her. She wasn't going to let them change her—she could be Gryffindor in title only if she remembered to keep at it--

"Then why are you still here, talking to us?" Hermione asked at last; she sounded simply confused, as if she was asking Professor McGonagall a question in class, not insulted. "Moreover, why aren't you in Slytherin, if you believe in the way the system works?"

Both questions had occurred to her several times over the past few months, especially now, as she practically knew Draco had written off to the Malfoys. She could imagine it, and she could imagine just how much trouble she'd be in for, vast amounts of it.

Bellacine sighed.

"Remember when we met? Not you, Ginny; you weren't there. We were on the train—I'd walked into your compartment. You might think there was some reason why I'd stopped there. There wasn't. It was the end of the train: I hadn't liked the look of a lot of the other compartments, there were empty seats. I didn't even know Harry was there till I got inside. You got up and introduced everybody—I knew who you were, actually, 'cos of Draco, but that's not important, and you didn't ask who I was. I told you anyway, 'I'm Bellacine,' but I didn't tell you my surname and you didn't ask me. You found out later, naturally, but even then you were better to me than I had any right to expect.

"I should've been in Slytherin; look me in the eye and tell me I don't belong here—not now," she added hastily as both girls opened their mouths. "I hate this idea of Houses, it's ridiculous, separating off people based on a few characteristics—for one, people are too complex for that, and for another, they're eleven years old when this is going on! Nobody is exactly the same when they're seventeen as they were when they were eleven. I'm no Gryffindor—"

"You are!" they exclaimed.

Hermione continued, "You're brave, and that's the main thing, right? You're more what they'd call crazy brave, I suppose, meaning you just do stuff without thinking about it, or you're, I don't know, you won't let people change you, and that's brave, not caring what they think of you—"

Over Bellacine's continued, useless protests, Ginny said, "If it's that the Malfoys want you to be in Slytherin because they want you to be some kind of Death Eater-in-training, then you know what you can do. Just tell them Sirius Black was a Death Eater, and he was in Gryffindor."

"I've tried that far too many times already, and it didn't much work," she replied, thinking back to all the times she'd attempted it, each and every one unsuccessful. They wouldn't listen to logic; then again, it wasn't really logic, as all of them knew that Sirius was no Death Eater, but since the Malfoys didn't know she knew, it never worked out. "Look, Ginny, I'm one of the last people from a very old pureblood family; this is the sort of family that places a lot of emphasis on tradition. One of these traditions, for both families, is being in Slytherin."

"Does that have anything to do with that god-awful middle name you have that nobody here knows that you say is some kind of family tradition?"

"First, Hermione, there is one person here who knows it and under no circumstances are you ever to ask him, because it's Draco. Secondly, yes it does. Thirdly—"

"Thirdly, does this have anything to do with that Reg--_Regulovna_ thing Vasily always uses when he's talking to you?" she interjected.

Her elocution was so entirely unlike anything she had ever heard that Bellacine had to think for several seconds before she came up with the non-slaughtered pronunciation. "Regulovna? No--that's not my middle name; it's a Russian thing called a patronymic. It's usually not a surname, it just goes between your first name and your surname, like Bella Regulovna Black, but people use it more often"

"But—what is it?"

"It's your father's name, followed by –ovich for boys and –ovna for girls," she explained, and Hermione looked slightly less blank.

"So your father's name was—what? Regul-something?"

"Regulus Black," Bellacine said quietly. Hermione and Ginny both nodded concisely, allowing sympathetic half-smiles to cross their faces. "_Don't _look at me like that. Like my parents are dead. I know that. I don't care, I'm tired of hearing about it—oh, wait, I forgot"—she feigned a puzzled frown—"I never do, do I?"

"That's not true, and you know it's not-"

"Yes it is, and YOU KNOW IT IS!"

Momentarily she felt guilty, seeing Ginny almost subconsciously flinch away, her eyes wide, and Hermione gaping and looking like she was blinking back tears, and she told herself not to care. Bellacine jumped up, slammed her Charms book shut, and stormed out of the library. She hadn't even accomplished anything the entire time.

She didn't know what was wrong with her, but she had all of a sudden felt slighted, knowing she was—what, exactly? So Harry got a lot more of the sympathy, so what; she didn't need other people's sympathy, she didn't want to be like Harry, famous only because his parents had died and the Dark Lord had disappeared. She didn't want that. She didn't need them, not their pity, not their understanding.

"What was _that_ all about?" she heard a Slytherin mutter as she passed.

* * *

On her way to dinner she had to detour around the staircase near the library because Filch was cleaning up Peeves's latest entertainment, but there were plenty other stairs nearby. Like the one at the end of the Defence Against the Dark Arts corridor. She turned to her left and headed past the rows of emptied classrooms, bare of students and teachers until term resumed sometime after New Year's. The corridor was completely deserted—

Bellacine jumped at a loud crash in the classroom she was passing, thought immediately, _Burglars_, stopped to wonder why—and how—burglars would be in Hogwarts castle, concluded this was really quite unlikely, and stopped to peer inside.

Moody leaned unsteadily on his desk, chugging down a drink from his hip flask. He seemed to sense her presence; looked up. "What is it?"

"Nothing, sir," she said hurriedly, frowning. "I just heard a noise—"

"Well, that was me, all right," he said grimly. "Tripped over my own two feet—one foot, rather, I can be clumsy, you know-- and caught my wooden leg. Came clean off, but that's no matter; happens all the time. Well not all the time, if it did I'd be in a hell of a lot of bother, but often enough."

It wasn't like Moody to talk this much, to go on like he was, but she thought nothing of it at the moment. Nor did it occur to her that a veteran Auror like Moody might be above tripping over nothing at all, that it might not be the sort of job where clumsy people lasted a long time. It didn't occur to her then to be suspicious.

"You're fine, Professor?"

"Yeah," he growled. "I'll be fine. Once I get something to drink, I'll be fine. Probably dehydrated, that's what it was. Made me dizzy. But that's all right; I've got my flask here. And Black—"

Bellacine hesitated at the door.

"Don't tell Dumbledore about this, right? He knows I've been getting on in years, didn't want to take me out of my retirement for this job, but I insisted. I don't want him worrying about me. The headmaster's got other stuff to worry about, y'hear? He doesn't need to worry about good old Moody...."

"I won't say anything, Professor," she replied.

She looked back once after she turned to go. He reattached his leg, then took a few limping steps as if he was just getting the hang of it, sipping from his flask. "Good old Moody," he was saying. And then she promptly forgot about the encounter.

Though it was yet early in the evening, she went to the Great Hall. Already there were a few people at the Gryffindor table having supper; however, the only people Bellacine was looking for—Harry and Ron—were noticeably absent. Fred and George caught her eye and waved—well, one of them did—simultaneously scooting over to leave her room between them on the bench.

"Where's everyone else?" they chorused.

She sighed and shook her head. "I don't even know any longer." She must have looked worried, or at least like something was up, because George asked, "What's wrong? Nobody ask you to the Yule Ball yet?"

The notion hadn't even crossed her mind.

"Who would?" Bellacine said, poking at a semi-disintegrated pot roast with her fork. "Nobody's going to ask me. It's fine, I don't care; what else would I expect?"

"We know somebody who would," Fred announced his tone so serious that she couldn't quite be sure if he was pulling her leg or telling the truth. "He's waiting for you in the library. Probably just missed him if you came from there—you did, didn't you?" He eyed her stack of books, a very small stack compared to those of certain people.

"He's not joking," George added. "We've both talked to him."

"You—but—no way—Nobody's going to ask me, you idiots! I'm Bellacine Black, okay, and I don't—don't want—what I mean is—"

Fred muttered, "Oh, be quiet."

"Excuse me? Did you just tell me to—"

"Shut up? Yes he did" George said. "You need to get it into your head that even if 'I'm Bellacine Black' people not hate you and quite possibly run in terror from you because you're related to Sirius Black." She looked at him derisively. "What? It's true, it's not like 'fight the system' to be like everybody else—"

"But I don't _want _to be like everybody else. I mean, I want to—I just want to be able to make my own choices! I don't want to end up like, like Parvati and Lavender, or always revising like Hermione, or famous like Harry—I mean, I'm on your side, but I'm not—"

"Okay, we get the point!" exclaimed Fred. "Hurry up. Eat your dinner, go on. "

Bellacine shook her head in surrender, tight-lipped. "So who is this mystery person—I mean assuming it's not the Giant Squid, of course?"

"That's for us to know—"

"—and you to find out," finished George.

"Let me guess: Lee Jordan. Harry. Ron. Oliver Wood. Dean Thomas. Seamus. Terry Boot. Anthony Goldstein. Ernie MacMillan. MacDougal? Crabbe? Goyle?" Intentionally the final three were tossed in randomly because every previous name had been met with a quick shake of one or the other red heads. "I don't know, Professor Flitwick?"

"Good god," gasped Fred in mock horror, "you seriously meant—He's about two hundred years older than you, for starters—"

"It's known as sarcasm."

"I know that—sarcasm is a very dear friend of mine. I was only joking."

Bellacine laughed and got up with a sigh, her dinner finished. "Right, then, I'm off to the library to see exactly who this person is. Mind you, if you've just completely invented this, I shall be very angry—"

"You know who he is," George said quickly. "Go on, hurry."

She left, heading up the staircase that Filch had recently finished wiping down, wondering. There was absolutely no-one in her year she could recall, nor in the years above or below, who might be thinking of asking her to the Yule Ball, no-one who might have been fancying her the entire year without her having the foggiest idea.

It could be Harry or Ron, she supposed; neither of them had a date yet, and Harry, as a champion, needed one. Oh Merlin, not them...they were both very good friends, and if it was necessary she wouldn't mind going with them, only as friends, but with the way Rita Skeeter was, Bellacine and Harry would immediately be in love. According to the press. She tried not to think about that.

Who were some boys Fred and George knew? They'd said it wasn't Lee Jordan or Oliver Wood, the only other boys having anything to do with the Gryffindor Quidditch team. She didn't know any other boys in their year aside from someone called Kenneth Towler, and that name didn't bring up any memories. About to guess it was one of their brothers, she remembered that Ron and the twins were the only Weasley boys left at Hogwarts.

Bellacine's hand froze in midair as she extended it towards the library door handle. _It was George_. Obviously. It'd taken her how long to catch on, exactly? One of the few names she hadn't guessed in the Great Hall; it couldn't be Fred because she had seen him ask Angelina Johnson in the common room earlier that week. So it was George.

George. She didn't want to go with George.

She liked him well enough, as something between a good acquaintance and a friend, but not "like that"....

And how was he going to get into the library before her, if she'd left the Great Hall before him? No secret passageways into the library were shown on the Marauder's Map, if she remembered correctly....

Taking a deep breath, Bellacine entered. Not a single person paid her any mind—there were plenty of people scattered amongst the tables and shelves, but they all appeared busy and quite unaware of her. So she stepped away from the doors and took up a post leaning on the front end of the WAL-ZIE bookcase, casually keeping an eye on the entrance.

Not quite a minute later: "Bellacine?" in a boy's voice she recognised solely because she'd heard him speak in class and in the corridors; an inkling of a suspicion flitted through her mind—but Fred and George would never, ever have so much as acknowledged him—

"Yes? Hello?" she replied, slowly turning, slightly afraid of what she would find. At once her suspicions were confirmed: Theodore Nott. _Theodore Nott_. Merlin was not on her side. A Slytherin, of all people....

"Are you going to the Yule Ball with anybody yet?" he asked, smiling nervously.

Bellacine was sorely tempted to fire back, "Yes, the Giant Squid." Instead she went the honest route—"No, not yet." _Idiot. Now you've made it sound like you're waiting for him to ask you._

"Oh!" he said brightly. "Well, in that case, would you care to go with me? I mean, I know you're in Gryffindor and I'm in Slytherin, but that doesn't mean it couldn't work—"

"I'm—very—sorry," she said haltingly, "but"—she searched desperately for an excuse, failed to come up with anything brilliant, and uttered the first thought that came to mind—"I have a, a deadly allergy to Christmas crackers and it just wouldn't be safe—"

Nott was apparently smarter than she gave him credit for, because he snorted sceptically at her weak defence. "Well, it's good to see you have a sense of humour. So many people are completely without one. It's quite sad. Will you go with me?"

Reluctantly, Bellacine resigned herself to an evening that could drive the best-humoured person to suicide and a lifetime of ridicule—

"She can't. She's going with me."

"What?" she and Nott gasped in unison. She turned.

"Bella's going with me," Vasily repeated.

"She is?"

"I am?" Bellacine asked incredulously. "Oh! Of course I am! That's right! Stupid...bloody...memory, I forget...ah...everything, apparently...."

"Oh," Nott mumbled, shifting from foot to foot. "Oh, sorry...I...I think I'll...I have to go. 'Bye." He turned sharply on his heel and very briskly escaped the library.

She could not think of anything worthwhile to say for several long moments. Finally the sound of Vasily clearing his throat expectantly several times over prompted her to say, "Was that you being extremely helpful, coming in at the right moment, or did you actually mean it?"

"That you're going to the Yule Ball with me? Yes, I meant it," he said. "Why, is there a problem with that?" He paused, eyeing her curiously. "I talked to Fred and George and they said there wasn't anybody else--"

"I'm not, yet," said Bellacine, "and funny, that, because I came here on the recomendation of those same two people under the impression somebody they had spoken to would be asking me to the Yule Ball. And then I reckoned they were mental, 'cos Nott tried to ask me, and you got rid of him. Thank you for that, by the way. And nobody's asked me, so I think I'll be going now."

"I asked you!"

"You did not."

"Yes I--," Vasily threw up his hands in exasperation. "Oh I see. You mean 'ask' in every dictionary-thicker-than-the-International-Statute-for-Secrecy sense of the word; you are by far too literal. Must I?" His tone immediately switched to that of pretend petulance.

She wasn't sure at all what she thought about this. On the one hand, she'd never even _dreamed _of Vasily asking her to the Yule Ball and she didn't even know if he wanted to go with her, or if he was both saving her from Nott and getting himself a date because perhaps it was necessary? But she couldn't exactly turn him down, not when it was the best offer she'd be likely to receive. "Naturally."

"Very well. I think you ought to know that I'm feeling rather embarrassed right now." He sighed. "Bella Regulovna, will you go with me to the Yule Ball?" Silence. "Bella?"

"I'm waiting for the punch line," said Bellacine. On the other hand, Vasily was a good sort, had become her friend over the past two months, was intelligent (i.e., unlike approximately seventy-five per cent of the student body at Hogwarts), and at least if the Yule Ball itself turned out to be a complete waste of their time (which most school-run functions usually were) they could at least have fun mocking the rest of the school....

"I'm serious."

She took a deep breath. "No. Really. Believe me, it's fine, if there's somebody else you'd rather go with, go ahead." Wanting to agree, she still wondered if he was just asking her out of pity, or because he somehow felt obligated to, or just because the ratio of girls to boys from Durmstrang for the Tournament was one to three, and Bellacine couldn't make herself say yes in that case. "I appreciate it, that you got me out of going with Nott, but I can find...."

The dryly amused half-smile on his face made her trail off into silence. That, and the fact that Madam Pince was bearing down on them, her dark scowl more appropriate to--well, there wasn't much in Hogwarts that was more threatening than the bellicose librarian in a temper.

"I don't think she's very happy," Bellacine whispered.

"No, probably not," Vasily agreed quietly. "In the event that the castle suddenly implodes around us, may I please have an answer? Because I assure you everything I said was said with the utmost sincerity."

Madam Pince was right before them.

"This is a _library_!" she hissed, pointing rather dramatically to the doors. "This is not a common room, this is a place for learning and revising, and you are not to come in here for idle chitchat. _Out_!"

"We were discussing, erm, politics," Vasily piped up earnestly. "I had the _Daily Prophet_--that is what it's called, isn't it? Oh good. Well I'm sure I had a copy around here someplace, must have left it behind, but we were talking about the elections coming up this spring. In Russia, you know; I'm from Durmstrang. Pleased to meet you. So who do you think will win, Prishchipenko or Prichodko?"

Madam Pince, whose harsh expression slipped for a second to show utter bewilderment, said, "Er--Prishchickenpennepenko, of course. Yes. Well"--suddenly her voice was testy again--"don't you think it would be a better idea to talk about politics _outside_?" And with that, she actually marched the pair of them to the library door and huffily threw them out into the corridor.

"Yes," said Bellacine loudly for the benefit of the librarian's ugly nose still poked into the corridor, "I quite agree. Prishchickenpennepenko--did I get that right?--all the way."

The door creaked slowly shut.

Vasily shot her a look. "You do know that there aren't elections this year?"

"You do know what I was talking about, don't you, and you're just saying that because it makes you feel special," she retorted. Then Bellacine glacned around, and started to laugh. She opened her mouth to speak once and couldn't get the words out. She tried again and managed to gasp, "Oh, just imagine if Hermione could see what you've done now--she'd never speak to either of us again."

"What'd I do?" he asked innocently.

"Oh, nothing much, at least in my book, but in Hermione's book getting kicked out of the library is a rather big deal, don't you think?"

**

* * *

**

A/N: I suddenly feel as if the cliche monsters are attacking me. Bad monsters! Go away! There are enough monsters in my head as it is...!

**Yes, that's right. Prishchickenpennepenko.**

* * *


	10. Chapter 10 Philosophy and True Purposes

**A/N: ****My 'plot bunny' (I have heard, many a time, about the existence of such creatures. Apparently they make one wish to write, and motivate one to continue writing when one is tired and really, really lazy, and feels somewhat forgotten.) is trying to hop away. I am attempting to appease it with a vast supply of carrots and peppermint (the peppermint is for me) but it refuses to be restrained. If you see a small white rabbit hopping about with a copy of OotP in one paw and a notebook in the other, please return it to me. I believe its name is Mortimer.**

* * *

"Bella!" exclaimed Ron, sounding thoroughly aghast. "I—I don't believe you—You're going to the Yule Ball with somebody from _Durmstrang_?"

Exchanging an eye roll with Hermione—this was the first of several times in the remaining days before Christmas that Bellacine and he were going over this, Ron ceaselessly astounded by the fact that she was going with somebody from Durmstrang. He didn't like it at all, just as he didn't like the fact that Hermione refused to tell him a thing about Krum.

"Yeah, I am," she retorted. "It's Vasily, Ron, get over it. Vasily—you know, the one that used to sit at our table? Believe me, it's not one of those pureblood idiots, I've known him for ages—"

"They're all purebloods!" he said vehemently. "It's like an entire school full of Slytherins and you're going with one. I mean—not that it's the pureblood thing itself that matters, you are and I'm sort of one, but...that's all the school is! Exclusively pureblood! Like Slytherin! That's what it is, isn't it?"

She stared coldly at him for a few moments, and he seemed to regret saying this.

"Okay, not _all _of them...," he mumbled.

Bellacine nodded slowly, with a slightly-too-wide smile plastered across her face, as if he was thick. "Good, Ron. Much better. Now—"

"But he's still from Durmstrang!" he interrupted. "He's from a school competing against Hogwarts, which is competing against Harry. You can't go with somebody from Durmstrang, it's not right...." Bellacine fixed him with a glare and he trailed off. Strange as it seemed, none of the four of them had yet descended to the point of fighting at all. Ron's temper was certainly much quicker than usual, true; he kept pestering her about Vasily and Hermione to tell him who her date was, but he was reluctant to pursue anything, possibly in the spirit of Christmas. She could hope, anyway.

It probably didn't help in the slightest that he hadn't even asked the girl he was going with, Padma Patil, much less ever talked to her. The same night Vasily had asked her in the library, Harry had asked Parvati Patil in the middle of the common room out of sheer desperation, and she'd agreed to set up her twin sister with Ron.

Harry was exactly the opposite—in fact, Harry had been quite cool about the whole thing. Of course, he didn't know any more about Hermione and Krum than Ron did, but Bellacine and Ginny had promised, after all. Mostly, he seemed a combination of embarrassed and scared out of his wits. And though he denied it adamantly, even under Hermione's in-depth interrogation, she knew he had done absolutely no work whatsoever on the mysterious golden egg for the second task.

Fred and George (who was going with the Lizzie girl who seemed to be the carefully planted decoy in so many of their pranks, as she was quite talented at smiling innocently) were very pleased with themselves the morning after they had sent her to the library. In return for their favour—convincing Vasily to ask her to the Yule Ball, which sounded better every day—she aided and abetted their side in the snowball fight Christmas afternoon, much to the chagrin of Harry and the others.

At five o'clock, Hermione popped up from behind a carefully constructed snow bank that was crumbling slowly under a steady barrage of missiles from Lee Jordan, her hands raised. Lee flicked his wand idly and the last of the snowballs veered off course.

"I'm going in now," she announced, practically yelling over the din of shrieks and threats around them. "Bella? Ginny?

"Sure," shouted Ginny, ducking under Ron's arm as he attempted to stuff a handful of snow into her hat. "RON, STOP IT! Bella, come in before they get you too!" Bellacine shrugged and tried to finish off Harry's destruction whilst running in the opposite direction.

"What, you need three hours?" Ron demanded. "Who're you going with that it takes that long to—Hermione? Hey, come back, you're on my team!"

Hermione stomped away through the high drifts of snow decorating the grounds, and Bellacine and Ginny followed, despite the continued shouts of their former comrades. Inside the castle, they shook snow off their shoes, and Hermione led them briskly to Gryffindor Tower.

"I know Ron's just doesn't get it sometimes, but what _are_ you doing that takes this long?" inquired Ginny.

Hermione pulled her knit hat off, and as she did, the static made her hair frizz up to the point of being ridiculously puffy. "I want to fix this," she said, holding up a section of hair. "I'm sick of looking like I've been electrocuted. I want it flat for tonight, and I have no idea how long it'll take to get it properly straight."

"Sleekeazy's," said Ginny at once.

"Excuse me?"

"Hair stuff," the girl explained. "My friend Moira's got loads, she'll probably loan you some. She's the one with the blonde hair that's practically in ringlets—it is when she doesn't use Sleekeazy's, at least. It makes your hair stay however you want it to."

"Like a flatiron?" Hermione asked. They exchanged blank looks.

"I've no idea, really," Bellacine said dubiously. "But if you'd rather it was straighter and not frizzy, like...."

"Tonight, that's _all _I want," she said with a laugh. "Hey, maybe Ron won't recognise me...I mean, imagine when he finds out...Viktor _Krum_...." She shuddered.

An hour and a half later, Hermione emerged from the third-year girls' room of the dormitories, with her hair as straight as Parvati's. The hair potion also made her usually mid-brown hair lighter, with a slight shine. Anxiously, she asked, "How do I look?"

"Oh, very nice," said Ginny, not without a hint of pride at the success of her suggestion. "Going to get ready now? I'll see you there, I suppose." She slipped back inside her own room--Bellacine had forgotten she was going with Neville. Neville, of all people, honestly. But better Ginny than Hermione--or her.

"Wait," Bellacine ordered as Hermione reached out to open the door to their own room. "Lavender and Parvati," she added by means of explanation. If Hermione's date was such a secret, then the less chance either of the other two girls overheard a thing, the better. "Are we meeting them in the entrance hall or are we going down to the ship? Vasily didn't say."

"Viktor said the ship."

"Okay, then--be ready to leave at seven-thirty so nobody sees us." They nodded together, stiffly, as if preparing to enter a war zone, and walked into the room.

The air was slightly too thick with the smell of something vaguely chemical and probably Muggle; it sent Hermione into a violent coughing fit and Parvati, who had just put on very bright pink robes that could have illuminated most of Hogwarts, sent them a patronising glance. Then she blinked once, twice, as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Oh my god!" she shrieked. "Your hair--wow--it's...it's so _straight_!" Her jaw had literally dropped; she ran over to them. "I love your hair, Hermione, it looks great! You should do that every day!"

"It takes too long," Hermione mumbled, but Parvati paid her no mind, continuing to gush. After carefully re-adjusting her pale violet robes once more before the full-length mirror now propped up across from her bed, Lavender joined them. The threshold was becoming quite claustrophobic--she suddenly thought it lucky they had one of the smallest years at Hogwarts.

"Ooh, Hermione, I love your hair!" she squealed. "Isn't it amazing what just a little work can do? You've just got to do it like that again!" Hermione and Bellacine exchanged an exasperated shake of the head. "Where've you two been, anyway? You need to get your dress robes on, it's almost seven, and if you need to put on make-up or do your hair--Bellacine, what're you doing with yours?"

Shrugging, she started to undo the plait she'd made and stuffed under her cap during the snowball war. "Leave it down, I guess." Possibly because all Bellacine wanted to do was get out of this room where the stench of perfume was thick and the stench of extreme madness even more prevalent. She saw the two girls share a startled glance. "Oh no you don't. I like my hair the way it is right now, and it shall _remain _the way it is without any intervention on the part of anyone at any time, anywhere.:

"Oh, leave her alone, Lavender," Hermione ordered, and prised them both out of the cramped doorway and to their beds, at the far side of the room. Behind them, one of the girls made an insulted little sniffling noise, and uncaringly, Bellacine pulled back the drapes around her bed. As they all had done--so maybe Parvati and Lavender had some sense of logic after all, but it was a strange, twisted logic--that morning, she'd hung her robes on the curtain railing to get the wrinkles out.

They were made of a silky material that reflected slightly in the torchlight that eternally decorated the castle in winter. In bright, direct light her robes appeared a few shades darker than the Durmstrang uniform of blood-red, a deep crimson, but in dimness they neared black. Money helped. Bellacine would not be wearing any centuries-old moulding-lace-edged robes this evening. Being rich helped, though she would never, ever so much as broach the subject around Ron. Being a Black helped, much as it was also a detriment. And she decided she looked the part, her long black hair--her Black hair, because it was her father's and grandmother's, and Bellatrix's and Sirius's hair too--loose and swept back, falling down her bkac, her robes speaking of--something; they spoke of ancient and deep and powerful. So Lavender and Parvati, and sometimes the others, hated her for it--what did she care? _They couldn't say they were pureblood._

As they quietly slipped out of the common room, thankfully avoiding the kibitzers amongst them, Hermione told her, smiling, "You look evil."

"I try." She laughed.

* * *

They had foregone cloaks as it was a reasonably short walk to the Durmstrang ship (compared with a stroll up Mount Everest) and not terribly cold out-of-doors (compared to Mount Everest). The deck was deserted; after a moment's deliberation, Bellacine let herself and Hermione on board.

Vasily must have seen them there or known they were coming, for he was on deck shortly after they arrived. "Hey, Bella," he said, his breath leaving puffs of smoke on the cold air. "Oh--Krum will be here in a bit, once Karkaroff stops yelling at him and Vassikin."

"What for?" Hermione asked. "Moreover, who's Vassikin?"

"Moreover than that, where's Vassikin's date from?" said Bellacine. "Let me guess--certainly not Durmstrang, nor Slytherin, nor Ravenclaw. Not Gryffindor, we would've known. So either she's a Hufflepuff or from Beauxbatons, neither of which are good at all."

"Unfortunately, Beauxbatons," Vasily confirmed. "Got himself into it, I suppose. Vassikin is Sasha Vassikin--yes that _is _a boy's name--he's one of the four people in ninth year that came here and he's in charge of all the rest of us because Karkaroff doesn't want to deal with children. Anyway, the girl he asked to the Yule Ball is from Beauxbatons, and if you haven't noticed, that's probably the most liberal school on the continent. In Karkaroff's book, you see, liberal is very, very bad."

"And why Krum?"

Vasily looked embarrassed. Then he said, "Because you're Muggle-born."

By this time, everyone but Krum, Vassikin, and the headmaster himself were on deck; most of them nodded to Bellacine when they saw her, a faint blue peter of recognition, but nobody else acknowledged Hermione. Finally they arrived--Krum went straight to Hermione, who was looking much happier now--and Karkaroff announced, "To the castle, then."

It seemed Krum's strategy to escape his headmaster was to walk very quickly and reach the castle before anyone else, whilst Vassikin walked very slowly. Soon Krum and Hermione were leading the party, Vassikin bringing up the rear, and Vasily and Bellacine moved in the middle. He kept glancing at her as they climbed the small hill to Hogwarts castle proper.

"You look really nice," he murmured at last, as the doors into the brightly lit entrance hall were thrown open.

Inside was an explosion of many different colours, due to the varied dress robes instead of three colours of school uniform, into which the Durmstrang group slowly dissipated as Vassikin slipped away to a cluster of Beauxbatons girls, one of which withdrew, smiling at him; Professor McGonagall, looking slightly pained in a red tartan dress, dodged about collecting the champions. Bellacine couldn't tell whether Harry was in actual physical pain or just very, very mortified, being dragged along by Parvati like a reluctant dog, but it was easy enough to tell when he spotted Hermione and Krum, his jaw practically falling off his face.

Suddenly everyone seemed to be pushing forwards into the Great Hall with the urgency she associated with a riot, but Vasily did not move, carefully offering her hiselbow. He'd foregone the concept of a cloak as well; his dress robes were dark blue. She took his arm and allowed him to escort her in, all the while thinking things like, _Well, it's got to be even more embarrassing for Harry_.

The Great Hall had been entirely transformed in the time since lunch, the four House tables removed and replaced with a great deal of round eight-seaters; the walls appeared as though covered in silvery hoar-frost, and garlands of holly, ivy, and mistletoe criss-crossed the starry celing.

"Where d'you want to sit?" Bellacine and Vasily asked at the same moment. She laughed for lack of anything better to do, scanning the room.

Ron, sitting at table filled with Padma's Ravenclaw friends, looked more interested in pulling stray threads from the left cuff of his revolting marroon robes than conversing with his fate. She didn't see Ginny and Neville, but was quite disappointed to see Draco and Pansy Parkinson together, and Anton with Ekaterina Andropov, however heartening it was to see Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott all without girls by their sides.

Someone whistled, and she turned to see Fred waving them over to a half-empty table where he, Angelina, George, and Lizzie already sat. Trying to act as though this was something he did every day, completely natural, Vasily pulled out her chair before he sat. Moments later Lee Jordan and another Chaser from the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, Alicia Spinnet, arrived and took seats.

Just then the champions, in pairs, filed in--Hermione was at the head of the line, Harry in back--to much applause, and they took seats at the high table, where the head teachers of each school and Ludo Bagman sat, although there was a noticeable lack of Mr Crouch.

Resuming their seats, George suddenly stared at the high table. Fred, whose back was to that end of the Great Hall, quickly said, "What's up?"

George snorted--derision or laughter, she couldn't tell which. "Guess who's here," he drawled, smirking.

"No clue, try me," his twin responded. Then he glanced over his shoulder. "Oh. Merlin. _Weatherby_."

"The very same," he breathed, and all four girls at the table looked up to the dais. It was indeed Percy Weasley who sat beside Mr Bagman, looking oddly natural in his infinite-ruler-of-known-universe position.

"Looks like your brother has a new job," noted Vasily. "So does the International Department have a new Head? Where's Crouch?"

"I don't know and I don't care. Let's talk about something else."

Alicia entertained them with a series of anecdotes about her older sister who worked for Gringotts in the same capacity as Bill Weasley. "I remember hearing about Julie," Fred said fondly. "How many times did Mum try to set Bill up with her? Fifty? A hundred?" Which led them into a long, pleasing diatribe on parents--Bellacine, the outsider, enjoyed watching this--and merged into the twins' continued struggles with Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, whcich kept them going through the remainder of the meal. Frim how often Vasily spoke up when Fred and George were eating, Bellacine could tell they'd been talking quite a bit recently--about more than just her and the library--and she could tell he seemed quite interested in the business they planned to open.

When she asked him about it a few minutes later, as Dumbledore had them all stand--with a wave of his wand the round tables flew to line the walls, except for the spot where a small stage was erected, onto which the Weird Sisters trooped; loud clapping--Vasily shifted uneasily.

"Look," he said, so quietly that she could hardly hear him, "you know how my mother works for the international department at the Ministry? If only because she's never home when you come to visit. Well, it's not like she needs to--it's like your family, there's enough family money for a case like this, when my--our, Anya's and my father died--that she wouldn't ever have to work. I mean, it's not going to last forever, but if she didn't want to--I think she works because she can't stand to stay at home in that house alone all the time, that it gives her too much time to...think."

The band was playing (a philosophy: if you can feel the music before you can hear it, it's rubbish), the champions dancing--either looking to be enjoying the night or unbearably awkward, depending--but Vasily stepped back from the irregular ring of people surrounding the floor until he was near a table against the wall. Bellacine followed him.

He went on, "When they sent Anton's father to Azkaban, it wasn't like that; I don't know why. I know this only because I overheard my mother and my great-uncle Gnedich talking. They don't have that much money anymore, not much at all, the Dolohovs." They were silent through a wild sforzando. "Let's not talk about this any longer, all right?"

"Who else knows?"

"Nobody. Not even Anya; it's not that obvious. They've hid it well. Come, dance with me." Vasily took her by the hand and pulled her out onto the dance floor; the band was still on the first (slow) song but half the attendees were out there.

"Would it ever kill you to ask me first?" she grumbled, not meaning it.

She thought she heard him say, "Possibly," but almost as soon as they were dancing, they had to jump out of the way of Hagrid and Madame Mazime (_Even Hagrid's dancing with someone_, she reflected. _Now that's scary_). Anton and Ekaterina Andropov danced a few yards away, Anton sneering at her over Ekaterina's shoulder as they rotated, but that didn't bother her nearly as much as the new circle pin on his collar, the one that hadn't been there the day before.

They sat down almost a half-hour later, at a table frequented by the Durmstrang people on the Slytherin side of the Great Hall; currently, it was vacant. But after a few minutes, Vassikin and a strawberry-blonde girl came to their table.

"Have you seen our wonderful headmaster anywhere?" he asked Vasily precautionarily. "God! You know if he sees me again tonight, in the temper he's in, he'll make the rest of my life a living hell."

"Haven't seen him in here since dinner," he answered. "So who's the girl?"

Vassikin and the Beaucbatons girl sat down. "This is Claire Aubin. Claire, this is Vasily Pyotorovich, who's two years below me, and his friend, or something, Bella Regulovna. She used to go to Durmstrang."

As Claire scooched her chair up, Bellacine took a look at her. She was pretty, but she was no half-veela. Probably a good thing.

"What did Karkaroff do to you and Krum?" she asked. "Because I saw Anton a bit ago, and unless Karkaroff's already picking the people to be in charge next year, and giving them their insignia, you have just lost _everything_."

"He did _what_?" Vasily snarled, sounding every bit as angry as the ninth-year boy. "He can't do that, it's been four months and he's not allowed to replace people after two months have gone by!"

"I know. Honestly, what the hell?"

Claire chimed in, "Sasha asked me and he's the one who has to put up with me all night. I'm pureblood too; is that not good enough now?" (Bellacine was surprised at how faint the girl's accent was; then again, they'd been at Hogwarts for a few months and Vasily's was fading too.)

She began to tune them out as they started a round of enthusiastic Karkaroff-bashing, throwing in "that's right" every few minutes. At Durmstrang it had been something of a recreational pasttime; now she had no new material to work with, and there had been better smart alecks than her in the first place. Funny how Vassikin seemed far less uptight than he once had been, even a few months ago; he'd once obeyed rules like breathing out of line would kill him. And here was the start of a new era, Anton Dolohov practically controlling the school--she was suddenly glad she'd gotten out when she did.

Vasily must have noticed she wasn't paying attention, for he whispered, "D'you want to go outside or something?"

She nodded; they got up, saying good-byes to Sasha and Claire, and went out through the entrance hall into a sort of garden-esque arrangement with hedges and stone benches and many long strands of fairy lights draped over things. It was snowing--barely, flurries, drizzling like light rain.

"You know," she said thoughtfully, "Russia isn't nearly as cold as everyone thinks."

"You're right, actually. I think the coldest it regularly gets around Durmstrang is twenty below. What made you think of that?"

"It's winter?" She looked quizically at him. "It's snowing?"

"True. Very true on both counts."

They walked--wandering about, really--meandering in the slight maze of the garden, talking. He kept drifiting closer to her, quite close, and then he was holding her the same way Sasha had held Claire when they arrived at the table, his arm loosely around her waist. The first time they passed a minor grotto--bench, rose bushes, recessed into the hedge--Bellacine noticed two shadowy figures half-hidden behind the shrybbery; they seemed to be joined at the lips, but the second was vacant, and so they sat.

It was silent for a long time except for the faint strains of music drifting from the castle, over the hedges; then collectively, Vasily breathed in deeply, exhaled quickly, took her hands in his.

His face was completely in shadow but she could tell he was looking her directly in the eye.

"You know"--he swallowed--"I--_who's there_?"

Suddenly, she heard a voice, close by, unpleasantly familiar, and the voice was saying, "I'm afraid I don't understand what it is you're getting so worked up over, Igor."

Vasily dropped her hand and jumped to his feet as Snape and Karkaroff rounded the corner, Karkaroff retorting angrily, "Have you not noticed it darken--Gnedich, what are you doing here?" he snapped.

"Sitting, sir." He looked down as if he was surprised to see ground beneath his feet. "Actually, sir, standing, but formerly sitting. Sir."

Snape snapped, "Then get inside, both of you, now," and swept past them, with Karkaroff trailing behind. Glancing at Vasily, she mouthed, _Sir, yes, sir,_ and the Potions master half-turned to shout back at them, "Ten points from Gryffindor!" before continuing, "I still don't see what there is to fuss about, Igor...." Whatever it was he was fussing about, Karkaroff was clutching his left forearm, staring back at them--anxiously?

"Well then."

"Shall we go back inside, then." They did.

She was quite sure that Vasily had been about to kiss her when Snape and Karkaroff had arrived, and she didn't really mind---if that was the way he felt, fine by her, if he liked her enough to take a girl two years younger to the Yule Ball, if, if, if....This would never have happened at Durmstrang, with Anya around, and she'd hardly known him then. But....

Anya wasn't here, and she didn't need to know about this, and a rather guilty-feeling part of Bellacine was putting Anya in a ox labelled 'Old World' and leaving the box behind....

* * *

Four of them sat at the circular table: she, Vasily, Harry, and Ron. The latter two kept exchanging conspiratoral shrugs, and finally Ron blurted, "Can we trust him?"

"Who?" she asked. "Vasily? 'Course you can." It began to dawn on Bellacine just how serious her friends' expressions were, especially Ron, and this worried her. "What happened?"

"We were outside," said Ron somberly. "We heard Hagrid talking to Madame Maxime. He was telling her about his mum, and it turns out she's--she's a giantess. Hagrid is half-giant."

She was going to stay calm. She would not lose control...only Hagrid, only half-giant, giants were mean and vicious and thought killing was entertainment....only a half-breed, only another one of them, apparently all the teachers in this godforsaken place were half-breeds; would it never end?

It was, in the end, Vasily who spoke first.

"Hagrid is that tall one--the one who looks half-giant, yes?"

"But what's it matter if his mother was a giantess?" Harry snapped furiously. They all stared at him. Finally Ron said, "Well...nobody who knows him will care, 'cos they'll know he's not dangerous. But...Harry, they're just vicious, giants. It's like Hagrid said, it's in their natures, they're like trolls...they just like killing, everyone knows that. But there aren't any left in Britain now," he added.

"What happened to them?

Bellacine took over. "Aurors, mostly...they were almost gone here, and the more they killed, the more the Aurors went for them. They've been wiped out here, but there's still quite a few left on the continent. Germany, mostly. Not sure why."

"I don't know who Maxime thinks she's kidding," said Harry, nodding to the Beauxbatons headmistress sitting alone at the judges' table. "If Hagrid's half-giant she definitely is. Big bones...the only thing that's got bigger bones than her is a dinosaur."

Spending quite a long time at this table, she soon tired of the gloomy atomsphere; with a gesture to Vasily she left, and he followed. Together they went to find drinks. As he pulled the cork out of a bottle of butterbeer he suddenly started to swear under his breath.

Thinking it was the bottle, Bellacine said, "Here, let me try."

"No--it's not that."

He spoke Russian. He had hardly used it for the two months he'd been at Hogwarts--all the delegates could speak English; it must have been a requirement to attend, so they wouldn't make fools of themselves. He had mostly spoken English, when he was with her or at the Gryffindor table, and a little German; if her own past experience counted for anything he had either completely blanked out or....

"I don't believe this," he hissed. "Werewolves--that was different! One night a month, maybe two occasionally, and there are potions! But giants--this is ridiculous, they're giants _all the time_, nobody can do a thing aout it, and it's so damn obvious--how did we never notice? How did the rest of the _school _never notice? Doesn't that tell you something, when one of your professors is about as large as a _house_?"

Resignation washed over her, unsettling and cold. "There's not much we can do," Bellacine pronounced. "I can't pull the same thing I did last year, making him quit--Hermione's too smart, she'll get suspicious. And I don't want to do that more than I have to."

Vasily shrugged angrily. "He still shouldn't be teaching here--"

"I know, Vasily! I know that--but can we just enjoy ourselves tonight and take care of the world tomorrow?"

Perhaps he groused, but soon enough they were dancing again, butterbeers discarded on a deserted table--perhaps this was the true purpose of tables, at which to leave behind things unneeded--and half an hour later, after one last crashing round of applause for the Weird Sisters, everyone was in the entrance hall exchanging good-byes.

"I'll go down to the ship with you," she offered.

"You don't--"

"Oh, relax," Bellacine chuckled, and they exited the hall.

It felt like a much shorter walk down to the Black Lake than it had earlier in the evening, when they had an entire evening ahead of them. The lake was half-frozen now, the fragments of ice upon it carpeted with fluffy white snow; they seemed to mimic the scattered clouds and, far beyond, stars in the inky sky, white sailing on black. Trees had become thin burnt crosses with flakes o trembling white ash falling from them.

The ship was upon them--clearly others had returned already; there were footprints across the deck. The wind picked up as Bellacine climbed the gangplank, the rigging creaked, the grounds soaked in a cold, distant sort of light.

"Well...," Vasily said quietly. "Thanks--I had a good time. Excluding everything with teachers, naturally."

"Naturally."

"Yes, naturally...good night, then."

Coldly, a voice above them said, "I don't see what's so good about it." Anton stood on the quarterdeck with his hands buried deep in the pockets of the long cloak he wore over his robes. "For you, at least, and Vassikin."

"Plenty good, I think," Vasily retorted brazenly.

Laughing, his cousin extracted something from his cloak pocket and flipped it down to them, like a coin. "See that." He nodded. "Professor Karkaroff gave me that this afternoon. My pin. Vassikin rules no longer." He laughed again.

They let it fall onto the deck, but Bellacine picked it up when Anton finished his speech. It was indeed the pin she'd seen on his robes earlier, the Durmstrang crest on a black circle, edged with a gold border, the thing they'd feared. Sasha Vassikin she had liked, had been decent for a ninth-year and not too cocky; Anton, with power, would probably bring the school to ruin.

Vasily plucked it from her hands and wrenched it over the railing, out of sight--

"_Accio_!" shouted Anton with his wand held out, and it zoomed back into his outstretched hand like a Snitch. He began to pace the quarterdeck, five feet above them; she could only see his outline silhouetted by starlight, which suddenly seemed all too far away. Vasily began to climb the ladder to the quarterdeck.

"That, for example, you cannot do any longer," he said dangerously--or, rather, with such an unbelievably pleasant tone it constituted danger. "Vasily Pyotorovich, you need to watch your back--"

"You need to watch yours!" he snarled, and shoved him, hard--hard enbough that Anton stumbled a few feet--hard enough that when he stumbled, he stumbled one too many feet backwards, executed a near-perfect backflip over the railing, and fell. Seconds later they heard a splash.

"I am screwed," breathed Vasily, panting. "I am so screwed. Oh, but that felt _good_."

Silence for a few moments, but for wind and ship-noises and faint splashing, and they stood drowned in it. Of course he was screwed, so to speak, but he was right: it had been worth it, the closest thing anyone'd ever get to revenge. Then, suddenly, without explanation, Bellacine felt apprehensive of something; not knowing what, nor anything, she hastily said good-night and left. And she ignored the soaked figure making its way towards shore with fury in its eyes.

Dumbledore and Snape stood together in the entrance hall, speaking in hushed tones. Passing them by, she overheard a few words of Snape's--"Karkaroff intends to flee if--"

As Dumbledore had seen her, he had given her a benevolent smile, and seeing this, Snape halted midsentence and whirled about. He started towards her, an unmistakeable expression on his face--yet _it could not be_--but the headmaster quickly grasped his arm.

"Good night, sir," Bellacine said hurriedly, and made her way up to Gryffindor Tower. The last few people in the common room were slowly petering out, yawning and rubbing their eyes, most still in dress robes. Ron slouched in an armchair, sporting a marroon Weasley sweater that _might _have been a wee bit better than his dress robes--scowling at the fireplace.

She attempted to sneak past--if Ron counted for anything, the infamous redhead temper was hardly a myth, altthough she didn't think he was Irish--but he lunged from his chair as she slunk along the wall.

"Did you know about Hermione?" he roared accusingly. "Hermione and Krum?"

Bellacine nodded wordlessly. Ron explodded.

"She wouldn't tell me--I'm her friend and she wouldn't even tell me, but she tells you--_Krum_, honestly, the prat's competing against Harry--she's probably been helping him with that egg clue these past weeks, I bet, and it's only 'cos he's famous--thinks she...."

She slipped off, leaving him to continue his tirade to nothing but a now-deserted common room; the last trickle of people had cleared out when Ron began shouting. The other girls were already returned to their dormitory. Thankfully, it was only a short while till Parvati (striking the interesting medium between bemoaning Harry's lack of any social skills whatsoever and gushing about "No, not him--the cute one, with the green robes--of _course _the one from Beauxbatons, what'd I tell you?") and Lavender ("So I asked Seamus, who asked Dean, who asked Malcolm, who asked Emma, who said--") shut up and fell asleep. And then she and Hermione could have a proper conversation.

"Hermione?"

"Hmmm?"

"Ron's mad, isn't he?"

"Very. Bella, you _know _I wouldn't help Viktor with the Tournament? I still want Harry to win...."

"I know."

They were quiet for a long time, Bellacine reviewing the night's events. Something was strange, something was not quite right, and more than just the revelation about Hagrid....Where was Mr Crouch, after putting so much effort into the reinstatement of the Triwizard Tournament, and why was Percy here in his stead? Snape and Karkaroff in the gardens--had Snape not noticed it was darkening, but what was _it_? Karkaroff intended to flee if--what? Snape had an unmistakeable expression on his face, yet still she could not bring herself to admit it--_fear_.

"Hermione?"

No answer. She was asleep.

* * *

**A/N: Temperatures for Durmstrang are taken from weather records from around Arkhangel'sk and are given in Centigrade (I _like _that word!) as one would expect from Vasily.**

**I'm still wondering if anyone is out there, or if I'm simply writing to an empty internet....Hello? Come in, Mission Control, come in.**

**I would like to add that Mortimer is quite fond of lurkers who decide to announce, and continue announcing, their presence. Hello lurky lurkers!**


End file.
